Rise Of Richard Hendricks (A Richard Hendricks SI)
by Y-T3cH
Summary: An ROB after getting frustrated watching silicon valley decided to replace Richard with some who would give the story an ending it deserved. A self insert story cross posted on Alternate History.
1. Chapter 1

AN: Right now I am not happy with the direction most of the shows that I have spent years following are taking. Its like all creators, after keeping the fan's hooked for multiple seasons decide to say FUCK YOU to fans and give a totally anti-climatic or negative ending. It broke my heart when it happened with GOT. Jon snow the promised price that was promise turned out to be completely useless and devoid of logic.

Similarly I was very psyched for the premier of Silicon Valley's final season and I hoped that all their struggle would be worth something and they would finally make it. They didn't, and Richard Hendricks turned out to be the Jon Snow of Silicon Valley. I haven't even seen the last season, I have just seen bits of its trailers for episodes or special moments on youtube and have decided that I have no intention of watching the ship sink. But then I remember how good the series was at the start and I started watching it again. Then as I was watching I couldn't help but curse as Richard made one stupid decision after another. Finally the idea for this flic came to me. I have been writing this non stop for 5 days now and I have finished writing 2 seasons. I am not sure I will take the story further than season 4. And this story will be loosely sticking to the cannon till start of season 3 but then will diverge completely. If you like it please leave your comments.

Oh and by the way I don't own silicon valley, HBO does.

_**Chapter 1: The Insertion**_

Richard Hendricks, the low-level hooli programmer died when he had a panic attack/ spontaneous stress-induced stroke at his doctor's office. In his place, I was inserted into his body by ROB. I had all of Richards memories and more importantly intelligence, with a bonus addition of my own intelligence, confidence in creativity.

Oh, this is going to be fun.

"Oh, you just collapsed there! Are you going to be alright?", the doctor said helping me up.

"You are a bad fucking doctor. And I am out of here."

As I left the building, I was ambushed by the smoking hot Monica Hall.

"Richard! I am Monica. I work with Peter Gregory. We met outside of Ted…."

"Yeah. I remember you. What can I do for you, Monica.", I asked with a smile.

"Are you okay?" She asked looking back at the building I came out of and then to me.

"Panic attack! The first time someone has shown interest in my tech. Both tech giants. Both with extremely lucrative offers. I don't know which to choose and I am panicking that I won't choose wisely.", I told her genuinely what Richard was feeling a little while ago.

"Richard. Buried in that clunky algorithm of yours was a compression algorithm that blew our engineering team away. What do you think hooli is going to do with that."

"I don't know that's their business.", I said shrugging.

"But it is your baby! Do you even realize that a compression this good can have on the world? Getting any file on your mobile phone in an instant! Navigation data for self-driving cars. Mobile medical imagery, all transmitting with no quality loss. This is game-changing!" She said with wide enthusiastic eyes.

"Don't you want to be in the driver seat when it happens? Do you really want to just turn it all over to hooli and walk away?" she challenged me.

I didn't give her a reply. I just took out my phone from my back pocket. Dialled the number Jared had given me and when he picked up on the other end, "Hi is this Jared? Yeah, this is Richard. Please give my apologies to Mr Belson and thank him for the opportunity but I have decided to go with Peter Gregory. Please convey that I mean no offence but I would like to see where this road takes me. Bye Jared.", I ended the call and looked at the wide grinning Monica.

"Did anyone ever tell you, you are one hell of a motivator.", I said to Monica grinning Monica.

"Look, I am a programmer. I don't know jack shit about business. But I am willing to learn with help. But before we proceed, Peter needs to know a few things. Erlich Bachman owns 10 per cent of the company. He is an ass, but he was the first one that believed in me and gave me a place to stay and develop the app free of rent in exchange for 10%. If I were you, I would try to buy him out. Second, I assume that Peter is going to need a business plan of some sort. Well, I don't have one yet. I am going to need a few days to figure that out. I have friends with whom I stay and they are good coders and programmers. I would like to offer them 1% each.

And last but very important," I said with all seriousness I could muster, "I need you to give me a ride." That elicited a peal of melodious laughter.

"Well, the last one shouldn't be a problem. I will talk about the rest with Peter and get back to you.", that is all I ask.

XxxxxX


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer - I do not own Silicon Valley,HBO does.

_**Chapter 2 - Jared Dunn**_

So when I came back, I managed to convince the Big Head, Dinesh and Gilfoyel to sign on. They weren't happy with the 1%, but I put my foot down to either accept 1% of a potential billion-dollar company and future salary in millions or I would find someone else. I was quite happy when Gilfoyel said, "Richard has grown balls." So they agreed and now we were having our launch party.

And outside the window, I saw the man we were waiting for. Jared Dunn. I quickly put down my beer and got up to open the door.

"Hi, Jared. What's up?"

"Hi, Richard. I heard you were having a launch party. Am I early?"

"No. The party is just pathetic. Want to come in?", I said snorting.

"Yes please." He said presenting me the bottle of…. Something.

"Oh, and in case, Gavin sent you. I want you to know, you won't be able to convince me. I am going with Peter Gregory. I have made my decision.", I told him inviting him in and walking inside to sit on a chair and offering him one as well.

"That's not why I am here actually. Its just….watching you say no to 10 million dollars to build your own thing, there is just something very exciting about that.", he said with a wide-eyed wonder looking at me. I always felt pity for Jared when I watched the show. He was the most unappreciated character of the show.

"Whoa….Whoa…Whoa Whoa Whoa…. What the fuck are you doing here? What is he doing here? This is a private party buddy. I am gonna ask you to leave." Erlich said in a very annoying way that pissed me off.

But I didn't say anything not yet.

"Oh, I didn't mean to…" He said getting up from the chair.

"You know in the state of California you can kill a man for entering your house without permission."

"Okay. I understand. Thank you." He said with a resigned look at the insulting dismissal. He walked to the door but gathered some courage and turned back to me.

"Richard I just want to say, that I really respect what you are doing here. And if you could ever use someone with my business development skillset then I would love to be a part of this." He nodded as he said his peace.

"The fuck you will be!", Erlich the asshole announced. As Jared was just about to walk outside the door, I stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Jared, do you trust me? Do you believe in me?", I asked Jared looking him in the eye.

He didn't reply for a few seconds but then his answer came. "Yes".

"1%. You are hired. Don't fail me, Jared. Now come inside and enjoy the party as shitty as it is.", I said slinging an arm around his shoulder and bringing him in. By the shocked, surprised and then an extremely happy look, he seemed agreeable to the arrangement.

"The fuck?",Erlich exclaimed. Others were just looking on in wonder at the new Richard.

"Holyshit! Who are you and what did you do to Richard.", That was Gilfoyle.

"I am an alien face snatcher who killed and buried Richard in a desert and stole his face. And now in looking for new victims. Preferably with one's with a beard like yours.", I said in a monotone voice filled with dry sarcasm.

"Cool," he said in a similar dry voice but with a twitch of his lips into a smile as he took another sip of his beer and turned back to his work station.

I felt Erlich was about to reprimand me when the doorbell rang and his present to us arrived. I am not the old Richard and if I had to pay the dam stripper then at least I was going to get a strip dance. By the end of the night, all of us were wasted, I had managed to get multiple lap dances and even got Jared, Dinesh and Bighead a few. Their faces were hilarious for the first few but then they eventually relaxed. The best part was that I managed to get Erlich so wasted that he ended up paying instead of me.

XxxxxX

The next day, Jared started working on the business plan. He also sat down with all the members of the team to understand what their role would be with the company. I wanted things to go the same way did on the show with Big Head. So as Big Head heard all the terrible things Gilfoyel, Dinesh and Elrich said about him. The crack about Mass Effect 3 was especially cruel according to me.

Big Head was gone all night and then as in the show, I went to find him at the hookers place, we had a heart to heart and he decided he was quitting silicon valley. He departed from there to pack up his cubical at Hooli where I knew he would be snatched up by Gavin Bellson.

I got home at Seven-ish in the morning.

"Jared!", I called out to the sleeping Jared as I closed the door.

"Sorry. I am sorry that I was sleeping.", he said waking up with a shock from the desk.

Hearing my voice others came to the hall as well.

"So… Richard should I add Big Head to the tables or not?", Jared asked.

"Big Head is out. He was leaving the valley but I think he got hired by Gavin. I am not sure but I think he wanted to get back at me for stealing you away from him.", I said.

"How do you know?", Dinesh asked in shock.

"I have my sources.

Jared! You are with me. We need to lock a business deal down and then I need you to do what you have to, to register Pied Piper as a company. I don't think peter will cut a check for my personal account.", I said giving Jared marching orders.

"Yes boss.", he said taking his laptop and following me to the kitchen.

I came back into the room to look at Gilfoyle. "Gilfoyle, you are good at hacking correct? I need to talk to you later to help me with a fuck up."

XxxxxX

So I got the call from Big Head I was expecting. Gavin Belson was trying to rip me off with Nucleus. He even went and announced without having a product ready or the algorithm figured out.

We also had our meeting with Peter. He liked the business plan but we told him to hold off on giving us the cheque till we could register the Pied Piper name. But we did sign an agreement so neither of us could back out now.

Right now I was sitting at my work station in the Incubator, experimenting with Richard's brain and using it create things using the ideas I saw on the show, that Richard hadn't even thought off yet.

"Richard….", Jared tried to grab my attention as I was working on the algorithm.

"Hmm…"I answered Jared.

"Richard we have a problem with the name Pied Piper. Someone already owns the name and runs a business with that name in California. So we need to change that name.", Jared told me.

Then everybody started giving me shit about the name. I just took it all in with a smile. I liked the name it was going to stay. Thankfully this time I hadn't bought a Margareta machine or ugly shirts so I had flexibility when it came to the name.

"Name stays. Jared, I have a job for you. Go down to whoever owns that name and buy it for me. Your spending limit is 3k max. If they don't agree, just add a 'P' to Piper. That should protect us on the legal side. And when and if you make a handshake deal, close it down with paperwork as fast as possible. I don't want him to get greedy later on when he hears about how big the company potential is. Can I trust you with this Jared?", I asked Jared with one hand on his shoulder looking him in the eyes.

"You can count on me, Richard. I won't disappoint you.", He responded as a loyal puppy would to its master. There are times I feel bad about manipulating Jared like this, but he was hungry for appreciation, love and friends and I was dam well going to give it to him in exchange for his loyalty.

"Of course I can. I have complete trust in your ability.", he shook his head like a soldier would and left the house to complete his mission.

"I definitely like this Richard better." I head Dinesh whisper to Gilfoyle. I said nothing but smiled and got back to work.

By the end of the day, the name was ours for 2000 dollars with all the papers signed. I rewarded Jared by taking him out to the bar and buying him drinks and dinner and loudly acknowledging his contribution to all the patrons of the bar by raising a glass in a toast.

I didn't think I would ever see him this happy. Next day Pied Piper was all over the internet creating a buzz with no backlash. Well except for Erlich somehow still managing to kidnap a child from a gas station.

XxxxxX


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer - I do not own Silicon Valley

_**Chapter 3 - Vision**_

"Hey, Jared! What are your plans for tonight?", I asked as I came back from the lawyer's office.

"Ohh, I have big plans for tonight. I am planning on having Palak Paneer and watching a documentary about Liberia. Why?", Jared replied to my query.

"Oh well, if you have your plans then I won't bother you. But Peter Gregory is having a Toga party tonight. Rest of us are going but if you don't want to….", I left it hanging. I didn't have to wait for long.

"Yes. No. I mean I would very much like to come with you guys. You know to be a part of the gang. Do you think they will have gelatin shots?", He asked in a rapid-fire speech.

"Why don't we find out together? We leave at 9."

XxxxxX

"I get the feeling that I should have worn more than my underwear and a bedsheet!", I said as I entered a party. The hotness levels of girls here was like... wow!

Others made some comments but I ignored them as not important. I am pretty sure Jared thanked me profusely before he went searching for Gelatin shots. My eyes, however, were grabbed by smoking hot greek goddess as she came towards me.

"Richard!", she said came towards me with a champaign glass in her hand.

"Wow! I mean like Wow!", I said admiring her from top to bottom but trying to not appear creepy. Let's try a cheesy pickup line.

"Did it hurt?", I asked and as I saw her questioning face, I continued, "You know when you fell from heaven because you look like an angel!" What a reward her melodious laughter was.

"You are terrible!", she replied grinning.

"You are beautiful!", I grinned back.

She smiled shyly at that.

"So Peter met with LaFlamme today and signed the paperwork which means that pied piper is officially launched.", she said changing the topic.

"I saw what you did there. Fine. So why didn't you tell me about all the other compression companies Peter was seeding.", I asked shocking her.

"What?! No, its nothing you need to worry about because none of those other companies have your vision.", she tried to reassure me.

"My vision?"

"Yes, your vision. Speaking of your vision, Peter wants you to come in on Friday to talk company big picture that kind of stuff. You know layout your vision in broad strokes."

"Fine, I will be there. So what are you drinking?", I asked Monica, already being prepared for this.

"Screwdriver, you want one?", she replied.

"I want you… I mean that…. I will now go get that drink.", I fake stumbled and moved on. I knew it wasn't the right time to make a move on her. I wouldn't want to date me right now as well. But hopefully soon. If not there were other fish in the sea.

I walked over to where Dinesh and Gilfoyle were hanging out and took a glass of whisky on the rocks and started drinking. But I was pacing myself as in no way shape or form did I want to offer Erlich a place on the board while drunk, as it had happened in cannon.

Then two pretty ladies walked over to us, who I had no recollection of seeing on the show. They must not be important.

"Cool costume! Where did you get it?", the pretty blonde asked. She was accompanied by smoking hot brown skilled brunet. Who was wearing the most eye-catching bustier.

"Umm…My bed.", I replied truthfully, but with a smile and a little bit more confidence.

"Oh… you are funny.", she tried to play me. And just like that, it came to me, who they were.

"And you are very pretty. You are so pretty in fact that I bet you do not know Peter Gregory at all. You know, from your looks and your personality I think you are….hmm… let me guess… actresses?", I said already knowing that they were, in fact, actresses, but it still shocked them.

"How did you know?", the pretty brunet asked.

"I am sorry I didn't catch your name. I am Richard, this is Dinesh and Gilfoyle. You are my lady?", I asked with my best charm. By the way, she smiled I just might get lucky. I knew I had no chance with the blond as she was here with her boyfriend.

"Oh… hehe… sorry about that… I am Anastasia and this is my friend Brooke.", she said giggling.

"It's very nice to meet you girls. The answer to your question about how I know, well I might not be as pretty as you but I am really really smart. You see, Peter over there has just invested in our company Pied Piper, which is going to be the next billion-dollar idea and I am its founder and CEO. So can I get you, girls, a drink or are you here with somebody?", I asked with a grin. Seeing their eyes light up in dollar signs hearing the worlds SMART, BILLION DOLLARS and CEO was very amusing. God bless gold diggers. To my surprise, not just Anastasia but Brooke as well agreed to let me get them a drink and told me they were here alone. Gilfoyle and Dinesh had their jaws dropped as I moved away with the two pretty ladies.

The next morning I woke up in a hotel room with a black eye and two girls…Anastasia and Brooke snuggle into me from both sides.

Then it came back to me. The drinking, them grinding into me on the dance floor, Brooks boyfriend punching my face and me kneeing him in the balls, then my escape with the two ladies, finding a hotel room as I refuse to take them back to the incubator and then the mindblowing sex. Wow, these girls knew some stuff. And now me waking up next to them. Looks like little Richard is awake as well. Let's see if I can get another round out of them.

It was 4 in the evening by the time I reached home and was met with a standing ovation from Dinesh, Gilfoyle and Jared. Erlich wasn't talking to me as I had straight out refused to have him on the board last night no matter how much he insisted.

I was kind of pissed right now at him as well, as he went behind my back and had LaFlamme draft the documents that included him on the board. Well, he is shit out of luck as I wasn't going to sign it.

"Dude you left with the two girls! What happened?", Dinesh asked.

"I thought you knew what happened, that why you were clapping.", I told them in confusion.

"We were clapping about you kneeing that Steroid addled Jock in balls. Do not for one second think you can fool us in thinking something actually happened between you and those girls. You probably just gave them cab fare and maintained a respectable distance chickening out once you left the part.", that was Gilfoyle.

"…"

"…" "…" "…"

I didn't say anything. I just took out my phone, opened the gallery with a password and showed them the picture I asked them to let me take to remember them by. Also with a promise of calling them again in the future, which I wasn't going to do…maybe. The shock on their faces was amazing.

"How did you do that?", Erlich asked?

"I think you mean, How did I do them?", I asked with an innocent expression and then promptly broke out into fits of laughter. Somehow I was managed to control myself and tell them in a conspiratory whisper, "The answer is TOGETHER and Whole Night Long and Whole Morning and Afternoon. Eat that Bitches. Now I am going to go take a shower and go to sleep." I said moving away laughing. I am pretty sure someone or all of them called me ass hole.

XxxxxX

It was Friday and Jared and I were sitting in Peter's Lobby waiting to be called in. Suddenly Erlich burst's in through the door. I visibly groaned seeing him. These past few days had been a headache dealing with him. We had multiple shouting matches with him wanting a place on the board and me refusing multiple times. Thank god for Anastasia. She had agreed to see me again, as I had called her frustrated after having one of my shouting matches with Erlich and need to blow off some steam. Brooke had backed out thought, not wanting to be a part of a three-way thing, and I was fine with that. Anastasia was hotter anyways. We went on two dates and both dates ended in mind-blowing sex. If Richard was alive he would have been jumping up and down in joy for getting so much action. Though he was not a virgin before this, his sex life left a lot to be desired.

"Richard listen," Erlich began. I visibly groaned again. Here comes the emotional speech. "I may have been wrong about being a board member. And I may be wrong about being steve jobs in our relationship. But I do know this, You are my steve Wozniak and no woz should go in into a meeting like that alone."

"No Actually…" I started replying but he interrupted me again. "So just let me come in, then I won't speak. And I think you should have somebody in there that actually has your back.", he finished.

"Okay. I am not going there alone, Jared is going in there with me.", I could see from his face he was about to erupt in the middle of my investor office at that, so I hastily continued, "Though you can come in if you promise to shut up and let me do the talking." I laid down my condition.

"You want to do the talking? You? Are you sure you can handle it? I am surprised you haven't pissed or cream yourself yet.", he said condescendingly. I just smirked and leant closer to his ear and said, "Unlike you, I have someone to su*k my b*lls off so that I am relaxed before a meeting. And she loves doing it too."

I could see a flash of jealousy in his eyes at that. But he kept his mouth shut. "If you want to come in you have to keep your mouth shut. Do we have a deal." I extended my hand for him to shake on the deal.

"Your funeral. Don't come crying to me later." I just smirked.

"Guys, Peter is ready for you.", I heard Monica's voice from behind me. I looked back to see her and her smile seemed a little strained looking at me.

"Hey, Monica! Yeah, we are ready too. Let us go. Gentlemen, Erlich, after you." I said gesturing with my hand ahead for them to proceed.

As we settled down Peter got to the point and asked for my vision. Erlich was waiting smugly for me to freak out and pass the mantle onto him. Jared on the other was making the face of an adorable loyal puppy with an encouraging look. I shook the image from my mind it was too distracting.

"Today's users want access to all of their files, from all of their devices, instantly. That is why cloud-based is the holy grail. Now dropbox is winning that game for now. But when it comes to audio and video files, they might as well be called dropbox." Peter laughed his weird little laugh at that. I felt I was on the right track so I continued, "Using our platform, Pied Piper users would be able to compress all of their files to the point where they could truly access them instantly. We control the pipe, they just use it. That's the vision in my head.", I completed. Looking at the reactions around me, I saw Peter and Jared were all smiles. Monica had a look in her eyes that said she had just acquired a new piece of information about me and was revaluating her opinion about me based on that. Erlich, on the other hand, had his jaw dropped. Understandable as I ripped off his speech word for word.

"Sure….Sounds fine.", Peter said back with a neutral expression. "Oh, I received an email from LaFlamme saying that this gentleman is going to be our third board member?" he continued.

No one said anything for a few seconds. Then I replied, "Not at this time. I am still evaluating what value Mr Erlich can bring to the board. So far the evaluation is not going well. Those papers were an incentive for him to try harder, they shouldn't have had been mailed to you yet. Please ignore them for now.", I told Peter not looking at Erlich as I knew this was his doing.

"Fine." One word reply and then he got back to work dismissing us.

I got up immediately not waiting for him to actually dismiss us verbally. Other stood up following me as well. As we got out of peters office with both guys and Monica following, I turned around and got in Erlich's face, "You pull one more stunt like that and you will be done. Do you understand?"

"Yes.", Erlich said not meeting my eyes and soon shuffled off.

"Jared can you give me and Monica a minute.", I said looking at Jared.

"Sure, I will go wait by the car.", he said and I replied by nodding.

"So, trouble in paradise?", Monica began before I could.

"Yes, you could say that. Any progress in acquiring his share?", I asked her.

"No. He flat out refused.", she said shaking her head.

"Fuck. Life is going to become really difficult for me now.", I said groaning.

"So how are you doing?", she asked out of the blue.

"Umm…fine. Why do you ask?", I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh… you know… the black eye. Though it looks like its healing.

You know I head a funny rumour.", she said looking me directly in the eye.

"And what's the rumour?" I enquired now interested, Erlich forgotten for the moment.

"Oh it's a silly rumour about the party that night. That you left the party with two actresses we hired to spice up the party.", she asked slyly. I smirked internally at that but outwardly somehow managed to control my emotions.

"Well I had to leave, the jealous boyfriend socked me across the face and I kicked him in the balls. Party kind off blows after something like that happens.", I told her.

"So nothing happened between you and the girls?", she asked. And I could immediately see the regret on her face as that slipped out of her mouth. She didn't want me to know she was jealous. Wow, she is jealous this early. Or she could just be intrigued. Now how to play this.

I finally decided on a plan of action. I leaned in as if to whisper a secret and as she leaned in as well.

I kissed her on her cheek and leaned back smiling, turned around and walked away.

XxxxxX

AN: Guys I recommend that you watch the episodes as well when reading this.

So i just posed 3 chapters back to back. I have 9 more written and this was just to get the ball rolling. Next chapter will be posted now . I think you are going to like it, major divergence are going to start now.

As always, please leave a comment.

~Till the next time


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own Silicon Valley.

_**Chapter 4 – Loco Logo**_

"You promised this guy 10,000 dollars without any approval? Are you high?", Jared said in his proprietary low voice as he followed Erlich in the house.

"A little bit, yeah. But that's irrelevant. A cool company needs a cool logo. You think those guys over at nucleus are hiring a convicted felon to paint a logo on their garage?"

"For 10,000 dollars, no!

Look I took a look at the burndown chart.", Jared said and then ran somewhere into the house to get it, bringing me along with him to talk some sense into Erlich.

"Jesus Fucking Christ!", Erlich exclaimed in exasperation at seeing Jared actually bought a whiteboard and me to support his side of the argument.

"It's not pretty." He said pointing to the whiteboard with the burn out graph. I was standing beside him looking at it. "The way things are going, we are not going to finish in 5 months. And even with everyone on reduced salaries, we will exhaust all our funding in 4. And that is without wasting 10,000 dollars on artwork.", Jared pleaded to Erlich.

"Wasting! I got us a great deal. You know he wanted stock options and I brought him down to 10k by pointing at Dinesh.", from there Erlich tried to point out how he was trying to not be a racist and how everyone was saying he was one for trying not to be one. I just tuned it out and re-read the chart again. Jared was right. We were going to burn through cash pretty soon.

Then I looked at Erlich and back at the chart. Back at Erlich and back at the chart. Then I grinned a shark-like grin and quickly stopped it before anyone could see it.

"Richard please talk some sense into him.", Jared pleaded with me.

"You know I agree with Erlich, I think it's a brilliant idea.", Everyone in the room was shocked. Then Erlich exclaimed, "Yes! You will not regret it.!"

"Of course I won't. Cause you are going to pay for it!", I replied grinning.

"I am sorry, but what was that? Why would I pay for the logo? You are the CEO, you need to pay for the logo.", He immediately replied defensively.

"I am also on the board. And as I recall, you want to be on the board too. You doing this out of your pocket will go a long way to convince me whether or not you are eligible for a board seat.", I said and a grin appeared on everyone's face except for Erlich.

"Hot dam, Richard really is CEO material.", Dinesh commented.

"He is got you now. What are you going to do? Man up or chicken out?", Gilfoyle goaded Erlich.

"I think I can agree with this.", Jared said smiling.

Now all of us were looking at Erlich and he broke like a twig under peer pressure within 30 seconds, "Fine, Fuck! But after seeing how amazing the logo is, you better give me that stupid board seat.", he screamed as he left the room.

"We will see." , I replied loudly enough to reach his ears.

XxxxxX

"Richard can you explain this to me?"

"What?"

"I just got this mail from my friend at Ted-Crunch. Pied piper just got into this year's Start-Up Battlefield?"

"Oh really? That's so cool!"

"No, No it isn't. Richard we are already seeded. Why would we enter a start-up competition at a tech conference?"

"Relax, I applied a few months ago. I will withdraw." I said shrugging.

"Relax! This house is chaos.", Jared exclaimed loudly offended at my non-nonchalance. Well loudly for Jared which was equivalent of a mouse squeak.

XxxxxX

In the next management meeting with Jared, he displayed his displeasure at the chaotic work environment. He talked about how Dinesh and Gilfoyle were always arguing and how separating them would help the work environment. The moment he started talking about cubicles Mount Dinesh and Mount Gilfoyle erupted. This lead to the meltdown of Jared. When Chuy arrived to paint the logo, this only aggravated the situation of his meltdown despite the company not paying for it.

Then Monica summoned us sounding extremely pissed. I guess Gavin and Peter had that restaurant meeting about Ted-Crunch.

Time to pay the piper.

XxxxxX

"…..let me tell you what's going to happen." We had been playing out the conversation just as it had happened up till this point. "Peter will pull all of his support and pass on any further funding, which as you know is a giant flaming red signal for other investors. You will burn through the rest of your runway. No one will step in and then you will go bust.", Monica laid out the facts of life in front of us.

"I don't get it. Doesn't Peter Gregory want what is best for the company?", I asked leaning forward to Monica.

"Look I am going to be straight with you. Peter Gregory doesn't care about you. You are small fry and they would spend millions down the drain just to insult or one-up each other. These are giants Richard. When Giants battle grass always gets trampled, but the giants don't care.", she said sitting close to me taking my palm in her hands and looking me in the eyes. As soon as she finished speaking, she realized where her hand was and tried to take it back. But I caught it in my grip gently before she could remove it.

"Then we will just have to become giants, won't we.", I smiled as I lifted the back of her palm to my lips and kissed her. Erlich who was sitting next to me was just oozing shock and jealousy.

"Tell peter we will be ready for Ted-Crunch.", I said and immediately got up and walked away.

As I walked out I head Monica commenting to Erlich, "He likes making dramatic exits doesn't he."

"He didn't before. Ever since meeting you he had developed a lot of bad habits, including having a backbone.", I could head Erlich grumble as he came out of the room.

XxxxxX

"What the good fuck?!", Erlich exclaimed as he saw the logo. Well if you call Dinesh fucking The Statue of Liberty a logo. I just smirked. Time to make a few calls.

"Is that the statue of liberty? And is that…That is penetration.", He said in horrified numbness. I just pressed my lips together so that I don't laugh out loud. Somehow I got my emotions under control by the time he looked at me. I said no words but just shook my head in disappointment and moved inside the house.

I am guessing that after talking with Chuy which would only make the situation worse, Erlich came back inside.

"Look Richard I am sorry I didn't know he would paint 'that' man. I promise you, he got that we don't want that. He is working on something better.", he said to me as everyone was gathered around me.

I was leaning on the back of the sofa with my arms folded and disappointed expression on my face.

"I don't want to hear it, Erlich.", I said shaking my head at him. Which made him drop his head in disappointment.

"Jared cut Erlich a cheque of 10k for that barn door right now.", I told Jared. To say he was shocked was an understatement.

"Richard…." Jared tried to convince me otherwise.

"Just do it, Jared. Now. And make sure I legally own that stupid fucking barn door and the art on it. I want this done within an hour. Get on the phone with LaFlamme and make it happen.", I ordered with as much seriousness as I could.

"What would you want with a literal 'Dinesh fucking' piece of art?", Gilfoyle asked.

"Do you actually like it?", Erlich almost asked simultaneously.

In reply, I snorted and said, "Fuck no. But I might just be able to find a use for it. You should move your pot if you don't want a passing squad car to notice it and arrest you when the barn is gone by tomorrow morning. I am going to go take a walk and make some calls. And oh, We are participating in tech-crunch so we need to be ready in 8 weeks." I said shocking Gilfoyle, Dinesh and Jared.

"So both of you will do as Jared says, or when I come back, I will shove those keyboards so far up your asses that you will be spitting keys for a month.", I said I left the house in pretend anger slamming the door.

XxxxxX

By the time I had come back, Jared had already implemented Scrum and it seemed to be working. Even more surprising was that I detected no hostility from Dinesh or Gilfoyle. I was very surprised by the last one. I had thought for sure, he would have quit by now. But it seems I just gained Gilfoyle's respect.

XxxxxX

The next morning when the carrying truck came, all of us went outside to see Chuy's reworked piece of art. In the place of Dinesh's face was Gavin Belson's face and Statue of Liberty that was being fucked look startlingly similar to me.

"Richard I am so sorry. I do not know why would Chuy paint that! Let me talk to him!", Erlich said horrified as he felt his chances for becoming a Pied Piper board member wither away.

"Just shut the fuck up Erlich!

I gave you one job. One job! And this is what you do! Who are you working for anyway? Me or Gavin-Fucking-Belson! I want this destroyed! You hear me! Destroyed! I will not be fucked over by Gavin Fucking Belson!", in a screamed in anger that instantly stopped the sniggering of Dinesh and Gilfoyle. What no one knew was that the kid across the street was recording everything.

Soon the garage door was removed from its hinges and carted away.

Once done I went fuming back inside.

XxxxxX

"Hello. Is Richard here?", I heard Monica's voice from the living room as I was sitting in my own room working.

"Hey", I went to greet her.

"Hey", she said back awkwardly.

"Come to check up on your investment?" , I teased her.

"Look, I wanted to apologize. I am sorry that I played you, trying to make you say yes to Peter's deal. I know I could say, I was just doing my job, but that's the excuse the Nazi's used and I am not sure how good is that.", she said smiling

"Not good. Not good at all. Look, it's fine. We are fine." I said taking her hand in mine.

"So are you two an item now or what?", Dinesh asked abruptly from his work station. That made Monica snatch her hand away.

"No." "Not Yet.", we both said at the same time. And then we looked at each other. Her with a surprised look and me with a grinning look, "Can't blame a guy for being optimistic."

She smiled at that but immediately tried to hide it. "Richard's got game now. Never thought I would see the day!", Erlich commented as he too came into the room.

"Look I wanted to show you a video that is going viral!", she said and it was a video shot by the kid about my screaming match two days ago with Erlich.

"Who shot that?", Erlich asked.

"Looks like it was the kid from across the street.", Gilfoyle said as he caught the kids face in a couple of frames of filming.

"This video has 5 million hits on youtube and now climbing!" Monica said shocking the occupants of the house. Gilfoyle and Dinesh immediately took out their phone to search for it. "Do you know what happened to that garage door art?" She asked gaining the re-orienting the attention of house occupants back towards here. "Richard sent it to the junkyard to be destroyed.",Erlich provided. Though he was looking very nervous thinking something else might have gone wrong.

"Then someone must have stolen the Garage door and put it up on E-Bay. In bidding war of epic proportions, Gavin Belson bought it for 4 million dollars and has posted a picture with it strung in hooli campus.", that left all the occupants of the home shocked but one.

"So you are telling me there is a Garage door-sized portrait of Gavin literally fucking Richard in Hooli campus?! Oh, this priceless!", I think this was the first time I have seen Gilfoyle laugh. It was very scary.

"When I find that Motherfucking kid, I am going to strangle him.", Erlich engaged!

I just snorted and said, "Why would you do that? I was the one that paid the kid 100 dollars to shoot the video. He even shot it with my phone!", that took the wind right out everyone's sails. Also, Gilfoyle stopped laughing so fast I swear I heard his lips snap.

"Not just that, I was the one that uploaded the video with a fake youtube account and I was also the one that asked Chuy to repaint the portrait with mine and Gaven's faces." I said taking a sip out the beer I had got from the kitchen. Everyone was just catatonic. No one could understand, why would I do that?

"Why?', Monica asked.

I just smirked as I walked towards her, took a stray strand of hair and tucked it behind her ear, "So that I could get Gavin Fucking Belson to pay me 4 million dollars.", I whispered in her ear but loudly enough so others could hear as well. As I took a few steps back from Monica, I could see the shock on her face and looking around the room I could see similar expressions of shock on everyone's faces.

"Awesome!", Dinesh cheered.

"You are the Son of Satan. I pledge my forever loyalty to you, oh dark lord!", Gilfoyle said in a monotone voice but I could see from his face that he was in awe at my scheme.

"Why would you do that to yourself, Richard?", Jared asked though I could see the pride in his eyes as well.

"Because of her." I said pointing to Monica.

"ME?!", she exclaimed in shock.

"You.", I merely said nodding. "Last time we met at Peter's office, you basically straight out told me that if we do not win tech-crunch, Peter is going to drop us just because of a pissing contest between him and Gavin Belson. Well by doing this I just made sure that even if Peter abandon's ship, we will have enough cash to keep the company afloat and go on till something else work out.", I said shocking everyone with the revelation of my sneakily brilliant plan.

Monica said nothing at first, but then she grabbed my head and gave me the most intense kiss I had ever had! "I am sorry!", she immediately said. "I am not", I said pulling her by the waist into another kiss. If it went for any longer I don't think I will be able to control myself. Even she felt the same apparently as I could feel her reluctantly come up for air.

"How did you know, it would work?", Monica asked after taking a deep breath and visibly trying to control herself and grab me into another lip lock. "I didn't. It was a gamble. I betted on Gavin's ego and hate for me. And it seems I won!", I said the last part with open arms.

"So it was all a plan from the start, even telling me to get the logo done?", Erlich said trying to gather steam for another bout of fury.

"Oh no! The chance I gave you was very real. I genuinely wanted to see how you handle the responsibility and what can you come up with. But then you fucked up. And we had just come from a meeting where Monica had taught me something very important – Of how billionaires are like Giants and they have ego's the of the size to match one. When I saw the Dinesh Fucking Liberty art, the idea just clicked.

And it was a simple cost-benefit analysis. If the gamble paid off the win would be enormous. If it didn't I would just loose 10k and I might recover even that if the video went viral. Which it did and I have earned 33,274.23$ from the video so far.", I said to my repeatedly shocked audience.

I saw Monica's open mouth an opportunity and promptly stuck my tongue down are throat.

"So who wants to go to dinner! My treat!", I said as I came up for air leaving the soft lips swollen of the beauty in front of me.

XxxxxX

"What do you think he will do when he finds out?", Erlich asked now in a relatively pleasant mood with booze in him.

"Break a lot of stuff" "Shoot someone" "Bash his head on the garage door", came multiple varied responses from my friends around me.

"What if he doesn't find out?", Monica asked.

"Oh, he will find out when he checks the account statement. And even if he doesn't the whole world will find out when I expose the trick in a video I will upload after 2 days. Hopefully, that goes viral as well. More cash for me!", I said taking another sip and then another kiss from the beauty on my arms.

XxxxxX

The next day I woke up next to Monica snuggled against me. Life was good.

XxxxxX

AN: So what do you think?

~Till the next time


	5. Chapter 5

AN: I do not own Silicon Valley. Also sorry for the delay but I am making it up with a Gigantic Chapter. Please let me know your thoughts. Reviews and favorites fuel my writing.

Chapter 5 - Who is the Wizest Man of them All?

As Monica's naked body, snuggled next to me with her head on my chest and her hand wrapped around my abdomen, all I could think was, Wow – life was good. But it wasn't stress-free.

After Garbage Door Prank as the world is now calling it, life had gotten quite hectic as I got back into the groove of things. But a lot of good things came before that and out of that prank. The first and foremost was the money. 4 Million for the art and with 90 million views for the prank video and 270 million views for the Reveal Video, I was swimming in cash.

I had become a small-time overnight celebrity. I had gotten innumerable requests for interviews and Late Night Talkshows after both my videos went viral and the story was picked up by national television.

I had rejected all those offers as I didn't want to overexpose myself than I already had.

Also right now I was Peter Gregory's most favorite person in the world, because of the way I pranked Gavin Belson. I had heard that after the reveal video came out, Gavin lost his shit and personally hosed the garage door with petrol and lit a match on it. This lead to the unfortunate side effect of a small part of grounds surrounding the sign to also catch fire. This lead to a little scorching of half a small building on Hooli campus.

And to Gavin's misfortune, the campus camera caught Gavin's meltdown and someone uploaded that video on the internet as well.

This had the domino effect of police arresting Gavin Belson.

Ron told me that charges were likely going to be dismissed as no one was filing a case against Belson for property damage. Right now though, Gavin was out on bail for the charges of arson and was extremely pissed at me.

The third and I could say, very, if not the most important thing that came out of it was Monica. That morning after the first night when I woke up next to Monica, I was both happy and a little disappointed that we didn't go all the way the first time. We talked, cuddled, talked some more, made out, then talked some more before we fell asleep together in my bed.

I was embarrassed the next day when both of us woke up in a teenage-style bunk bed. Though she wasn't. She just kissed me and I asked her out on a date. She said yes, in exchange for making me promise not to make her spend another night in the future in this bed again.

We both smiled when she said that, indicating that there was going to be a future when we would spend the night together again. Maybe this time doing something more.

Then we fast forward to the present.

After going on 4 dates in a week, we finally sealed the deal. After that, we have spent almost every night we could for the last 8 weeks together.

Though I couldn't do much last week as I was busy figuring out the cloud and middle out.

"Mmmm…. Good morning!", the naked beauty next to me rumbled.

I gave her a chaste kiss on her mouth, that lead to her legs and breast moving in such a way that did terrible things for my control and incredible things for little Richard. Though Little Richard was not so little. Richard might be a geek but he was blessed in the underwear department.

Before I knew it, we had gone 3 rounds and she was laying on my chest as both of us were panting.

"You know, I never thought a geek like you could do 'that', that well, that long and that hard. I know this will inflate your ego, but I have kept it in for long enough…. you are the best I have ever had.", she said biting my nipple.

"Thank you", I said flipping her and returning the favor by biting her nipple. The squeak was any indication then I was doing something right.

"Richard stop. I am sore, and we have a long day ahead. Are you ready for Tech-crunch?", she said pushing me down next to her to prevent me from going for a fourth round.

"More or less. We did the best we could in the time we had.", I told her, as I kissed her neck and was slowly going down.

"Richarrrrdddddd… noooo….. Move! I am getting out of this bed before you scam me into another shag.", she said getting up and moving to the bathroom.

"At least can I come to join you in there?", I asked from outside grinning as I saw her naked butt waltz into the bathroom.

"NO! The last time you did, we didn't come out for 3 hours and I was walking funny the whole day.", she said which had me laughing.

"Oh! Come on! I wasn't so bad!", I said from outside.

"You fuck like a man possessed when you are in the mood! I am not taking any chances.", she said laughing from inside of the bathroom.

I, of course, ignored her and went into the bathroom. It's her own fault for not locking it. There I found her skin being messaged by droplets of water cascading down her smooth white flawless skin. I was so mesmerized, that I didn't even hear the first time she said, "What are you doing here? I said No, remember." I snapped out of it the second time she said it. "I heard you, I just want to take a shower. No funny business! I promise!", I said grinning.

"You are a bad liar Richard Hendrickson.", she said narrowing her eyes.

"Why don't you let me prove it to you? We might bump and touch each other while taking a shower together, but I won't do a thing.", and I didn't. I think it drove her almost insane. By the end of the shower, she broke first and started dry humping me. 30 minutes, one fuck and one blow job later we had to take bath all over again.

"You are terrible you know that?" she said as she got dressed and ready to leave. I was still in the bathroom during that time.

"Umhmm…." I didn't reply as I was shaving. I heard my phone ring on the nightstand and then heard multiple message rings and then after a few minutes, I heard the door shut with a bang. That was weird, she didn't say goodbye and that door slamming sounded angry.

I got out. I got dressed and then picked up my phone and immediately cursed, "Shit." A miscall from Anastasia, who's caller id pic was her in a naked pose for me. That was what Monica saw when the phone rang. There were also messages. Some 3 messages and 2 pictures. One of the two pictures was her full body pic with open legs – with the caption – "Cum In". The other was her boob pics – with the caption – "Girls are missing you". The messages said –

"Missing You." "Let's hook-up" "You can take me anyway, anyhow, anytime you want!"

The phone was locked but she could have seen and read everything through locked-screen notification. Shit, this was bad. The sad thing was I wasn't even cheating on her. I had stopped seeing Anastasia the moment I and Monica started hooking up.

But that was the problem right? We were just hooking up. None of us had said anything about any kind of commitments.

Shit, this had to happen today of all days. So much was hinging on everything going according to plan. Fuck it, I was soon approaching a point where I will have to diverge from canon anyways, if I didn't want to be Jon Snow of silicon valley, like the failure original Richard in cannon.

XxxxxX

"I am little behind being stuck on that Island for 4 days but I think I am on top of everything.", I head Jared say that as I was still in my own world thinking about Monica. I felt guilty about Jared. I had literally just forgotten about Jared thing last week, as I was so focused on getting the work done. But I genuinely thought it wouldn't happen, as this time I didn't need a child coder to help me with the cloud and the child coder didn't need aderol. So Jared had no reason to get in that car. But somehow he still ended up in the car and on the island.

"Ok so give me your Id's an…." Jared started saying but was interrupted by Monica who came to us from the kiosk with our Id cards. She looked at me for a second and then looked down. "Got your credentials and wristbands for the walkthrough at 4 pm today. Here you go."

I had thought a lot about how to deal with the Monica situation. And I had decided that I was going to take my queue from her. Today was too important for me to deal with something like this. If she wanted to pretend nothing happened… even us having sex in the last 8 weeks, then I was fine with it…. for now. After the Crunch was over we could talk it out.

"Thanks," I said simply. She looked at me with narrowed eyes for a micro-second and then she was back to normal.

"I am so sorry", I heard Jared apologize for not informing us about the walkthrough.

"That's why I am here. Peter is on safari with Loren Michaels and Kanye West till next week so I can put all my attention on you guys at once." She said narrowing her eyes at me once again before turning her back to us and walking away with us following behind.

"Trouble in Paradise?", Gilfoyle asked for beside me. "Just shut up.", I snapped in a low voice to him so that no one would hear.

"Gentlemen welcome to the big show. Tech-Crunch motherfucking Disrupt." That was Erlich.

"Okay guys this place is a vortex of distraction, normally the tech world is filled with two percent women. Guys these next three days, fifteen PERCENT!", she said the last thing a little bit louder as it drew my attention away from the girl jumping in a pink sweater doing something. Oh Shit, I pissed her off again. I need to leave right now, the more time I am in front of her, the more chances are she is going to erupt very publically on me.

"I NEED YOU TO FOCUS! CAN YOU HEARD ME RICHARD!", she said a bit too loudly for my taste. I don't reply, I just nod my head in the positive.

"How we do here is the entire future of your company. Don't screw it all up now.", she said calming down a little. But still keeping her eyes on me. I need to get out…stat…

"We need to win in the preliminaries if we want to get to the finals on Friday."

"I have a question. The program says Dan Melcher is judging our round. Is there any way to get him removed?", Erlich said reading the brochure. Oh, this is going to be hilarious.

"Not unless there is a conflict of interest.", Monica said without turning around as she walked ahead of us.

"Well, there may be. I did have sexual intercourse with his wife.

What...? It was 3 years ago!", Erlich said defensively.

As Dinesh and Gilfoyle were ripping Erlich a new one, Monica came to hastily whisper to me. "What do you mean you are not giving the presentation? Didn't you hear the man say, he fucked the judge's wife?"

"Yes, but I can't work a crowd this big. I can present to a few people but not thousands. If push comes to shove I will do it, I won't do it well, but I will do it. He asked me for another chance, I gave it to him. Let's see what he does with it.", I told her in the same whisper voice.

"You are impossible.", she said in an angry whisper. Okay, mount Monica is about to blow. Retreat Retreat.

"…either way Richard you may have to present, so be ready. We may be fine, we may be totally fine. We also may be totally fucked." I didn't say anything but just nodded my head. Monica, on the other hand, had her hand on her head and seemed to be messaging her temple.

"I don't want to present. I am not even done with the demo.", I said making my excuse to escape.

"Okay, Richard you need to go to the hotel right now and finish.", Monica said handing me the key. That was suspiciously too easy.

"You already checked us into the hotel.", Jared asked feeling inadequate.

"Yeah. Yeah.", Monica said.

"Okay, so I will do this module by module. Dinesh when I call you, you come. Till then I will cross check the code to make sure I haven't missed anything. For now, go to the booth with Gifoyle and Jared.", I said and started to leave.

"You know what, I will come with you, I need to get something from my room anyways. I need to tell you something Peter told me.", Monica said. There it was, the proverbial talk.

"Can't we do this later?", I said hoping against hope that she would say yes.

"We could, but this is urgent. This won't take long.", she said with a tight smile.

"Umhmm…." I hummed not believing her but not being able to deny her request.

As we both started walking out of the conference hall, Big head walked in front of us and told us to follow without looking back.

"Monica why don't you go back to the hotel and I will meet you there," I said as we were following big head.

"Umm, No.", she gave the flat reply and kept following us until big head turned. "Hey man! How are you? Sorry for the cloak and dagger, I just can't be seen talking to you. There are hooli people all over the place. I just don't want to rock the boat. Oh did I tell you that I was getting a boat? And a boat guy to take care of it. You know you got to have a boat guy.", big head said.

"Yes, yes you got to have a boat guy.", I said trying to finish this conversation as soon as possible and escape to my hotel room where I can lock the door and hide.

"Hey, you know that girl right? Sherry, I think her name was? She said you guys went to school together?", he said pointing at sherry across the road. Oh, shit Monica saw her too. "I saw her at the valley wag party last night, which was crazy by the way! Dude, there were like 20 girls there!"

"Holy shit!" Yes, holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit! Memories of Richard and cannon do not match up. I have a very bad feeling.

"Nuts. Anyways, she said you guys went out for like a year and then you dumped her and by the way she was talking about you last night. That girl is obsessed with you. Ever since the Prank on Gavin, you have gained a cult following at hooli, although no one dares talk about you on campus. Not since last week, when people were fired just for talking about you and the prank during lunch. Anyways as I was saying, that girl said she will get you back before the week is out, even if she has to handcuff herself to your bed. That girl is all kind of nuts. What the hell did you do to her man?" Fucking BIG HEAD. You had to say all of this NOW! Motherfucking Big Head!

"Listen, Big Head it was nice talking to you and all but I need to go now." I said practically trying to run away now. "Yes, we need to go now. We have something very important to discuss.", Monica said. I didn't even look back to know, that Monica was fuming. And as fast as I was going, she was keeping up pace with me.

XxxxxX

So I somehow managed to reach the hotel room. Before I could close the door, Monica barged in. I was thinking that she would blow up now, but she didn't. She just went to the windows and stood there for a good five minutes with her back to me. I took my cue after the first two minutes and set up my laptop, with a resigned feeling that my relationship with Monica was going to blow up today, even before it started.

"So this girl is walking around the conference that is obsessed with you.", Monica said sitting on the chair next to me. Her tone sounded accusing. Now that just really pisses me off. How is it my fault, if she is obsessed with me?

"Umhmm…. That's fascinating. Let's just forget about her okay?", I tell her hoping against hope that she would drop it.

"Yeah…..

Yeah…

Yeah yeah yeah.

…

….

I mean it's just so fucked up that a girl you barely remember is walking around telling people she is in love with you and she is going to get back with you before the week is out. Right?" Okay, I had never seen this neurotic and obsessed mode of Monica before. And it was turning me on. No. NO. Bad Richard. Very very bad Richard.

"Monica you don't have to worry about anything. It was years ago. This is the first time I have seen her in a long, long time. Nothing is going to happen.", I tell her, immediately regretting my choice of words.

"Why would I care if anything does actually happen? It's not like we are exclusive, are we? It's not like we are in a relationship? We have just been going out for, what, 8 weeks now? It's completely casual isn't it? So why would I care even if you bring back cherry…"

"Sherry."

"Right, sorry Richard. Your bring back SHERRY and NAIL HER ON THE WALL FOR HOURS. OR ON THE BED OR THE COUCH OR THE STUPID FUCKING BATHROOM LIKE YOU DID ME THIS MORNING!" Now she was screaming at the top of her lungs. I, however, refused to rise to the bait and just sighed and closed my laptop and turned my chair to face her fully.

"Spit it out. There is obviously something you want to say. Go on…", I say casually in a calm tone, which only serves to infuriate her even more.

"I AM NOT THE IRRATIONAL ONE OVER HERE. DO NOT MAKE ME OUT TO BE ONE HERE. THIS MORNING WHEN YOU WERE IN THE BATHROOM, YOU RECEIVED SOME MESSAGES FROM SOME SLUT CALLED ANASTASIA. YOU HAVE BEEN SEEING HER AND SLEEPING WITH HER WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING WITH ME, WEREN'T YOU? I SAW THE MESSAGES AND I SAW THE PICTURES. SHE IS VERY PRETTY, I MUST CONGRATULATE YOU ON THAT. DOES SHE KNOW YOU ARE SLEEPING WITH ME? OR HAVE YOU BEEN FOOLING HER JUST LIKE ME?", I am pretty sure some of the other guests on the floor had already made noise complaints.

I calmly open my phone, open the chat conversation with Anastasia. Before I had it over I tell her the truth, "The girl whose picture you saw was one of the girls at Toga party I left with. I had a threesome with her and the other girl whose boyfriend I kicked in the nuts." I say to her and she breaks down crying. I put Monica in a tight hug even though all the way she is fighting me and hitting my chest, but never saying the worlds to actually leave her alone.

"After that, I had been seeing the girl Anastasia on and off for hook-ups. I knew she was a gold digger, she knew I knew she was a gold digger, but after the first time we kept on meeting to fuck because both of us enjoyed it the first time. And every time after that. She even brought one other friend of hers on two occasions to join us.", as I said that I could feel Monica's nails digging into my chest and actually drawing blood through the shirt I was wearing.

"Are you gloating?", she said punching me in the chest and trying to move away. But I pushed through the pain and did not let her.

"I am not gloating Monica. I am telling you the truth. I think you want the truth right? So please hear me out, after that, I will leave you alone if you want. I promise.", I told still keeping her in my embrace. As I talked she stopped struggling. She didn't say anything but chose to keep quiet and keep listening. that was dishearting. Though I didn't falter and kept going, "I stopped meeting her, the day we kissed for the first time. Here check my phone.", I said giving her her phone. I was a little disappointed that she actually took it.

"She has sent you a lot of pictures. And all her messages are dirty.", I could not refute that. Ever since the day I messaged her, that I can't see her right now as I was, to quote, 'Exploring something real with a girl I really like. I can't in good conscience meet you till I find out what I have with this girl will work or it won't.' After that, I had given Anastasia a completely cold shoulder, not replying to any of her messages.

"You didn't block her number after we started dating?", she said. And yes I didn't do that.

"Were we? Dating I mean? I mean we have never talked about what we have. Or 'had' now I guess. Every time I wanted to raise the topic, I felt you chicken out. I just thought you weren't ready for a relationship with me, I can't honestly blame you for that. What girl would want to call me a boyfriend?" I told her.

"Say's the guy who has had multiple threesomes and by my count so far has made three girls obsessed emotional wrecks." I didn't even give her a chance to elaborate, she did it on her own, "Sherry, Anastasia and me. My god I was never this emotional. I have had boyfriends before. I even had boyfriends who cheated on me before. But I can't remember the last time I was this big of an emotional wreck because of a boy." She said slapping me on the chest again, soft crying in my arms.

"I really thought you were happy with everything between us being casual. I wasn't. And for your information, I never chickened out. Those bouts of nervousness were because of something else I was feeling.", she said.

"What was that something else?", I inquired to the girl who was sitting on my lap now, who's head was buried in the crook of my neck.

"That's not important. I really wanted you to ask me to be your girlfriend. I thought you were the one who wasn't ready.", she said looking up to me with red puffy teary eyes. I couldn't help myself as I kissed her and kept on kissing her till we were on the bed and our clothes were flying off our bodies.

That night I experienced make up sex for the first time in this body and it was glorious.

As she was approaching her fourth climax, I told her I was ready too, we held onto each other expressing our passions by kissing, licking and biting each other till we finally came together.

As we came down from the throes of passion, I really wondered how did the night take this direction. I was sure that today would be the end of me and Monica. But somehow we had just settled on that both of us wanted a relationship, and that too with each other.

"Monica Andrea Hall, will you do me the honor of being my girlfriend?", I asked the woman who was panting naked next to me while holding her hands and looking in her eyes.

"Did you really just ask me to be your girlfriend using my full name?", she said laughing and then kissing me.

"Monica. I was planning to take you to Kalypso's next week to a fancy dinner and getting down on one knee and taking the plunge at asking you to be my girlfriend anyway. But considering today's events, I thought it was better if I did not wait. Mainly because I was 100% sure you would kill me in my sleep if I didn't ask you today.", I said jokingly to her wide-eyed reaction. She hid her face with both her hands in embarrassment. Then after a minute, she peaked with one eye from between her fingers and then grabbed me into a very passionate kiss.

"Yes. I will be your girlfriend.

Yes. It is good you asked right now as I would have surely killed you later on.", she said.

What she left unsaid was the last line that echoed in her mind, 'Yes. I am falling in love with you and am very scared about it.'

XxxxxxX

"Oh shoot its 3 already. You need to get to work and so do I. I will go and check on the guys and Erlich to see if he fucked or un-fucked the situation further. Be there at 4 for the walkthrough!", she said jumping out of the bed after looking at the time on her phone. Just as she was about to get further away from the bed, I caught her hand pulled her on the bed and kissed her soundly. "Now you can go," I said tucking her hair behind her ear caressing her cheek.

"You are something, Richard Hendrickson." She said shaking her head in a happy-content sigh as she got out and got dressed, with me looking at her the whole time.

I felt great regret when she left, but I did really have some work to do on the surprise.

Even the team didn't know that I had figured out, the Middle-Out. And unlike the cannon, I wasn't going to flush the modules down the toilet. Despite the team not knowing about middle-out, I had engineered the creation of the modules by the team in such a way that they could instantly adapt to Middle-Out algorithm, like a plugin.

There is a reason I didn't tell them about the middle out. This was because I needed the first season to play out just like it did in cannon. So that I could better prepare for the war that was coming from next season onwards.

I know soon my cannon knowledge would be useless, as I won't let myself make the fuck-ups, cannon Richard made. But goddammit I was going to squeeze all the cannon knowledge to my advantage as long as I could.

Xxxx

"Fuck that is huge!", Dinesh exclaimed looking at the size of the hall as we came on the stage for walkthrough and rehearsal.

"Yes, it is." Gilfoyle said. "Are you sure Richard you won't crap your pants if you have to give the presentation?", Gilfoyle teased with a raised eyebrow. "Well, let's just say, if I do have to give the presentation, hope to satan you won't have to stand next to me.", I replied with a smirk of my own.

"You are smiling. Joking. Have a glow about you mixed with a little arrogance and pride. You had sex!", Gilfoyle said catching me red-handed. Dinesh looked at my shocked expression and was shocked to himself realize that it was true.

"Fuck! Who did you have sex with? Did you even work?", Dinesh screeched.

"Hey, guys! How is the Demo coming?", Monica chose just that time to come on the stage to greet us with the biggest smile on her face.

"Aa… We are getting there.", I said avoiding eye contact and setting up my station to start the checks.

"Oh fuck it was you! You had sex with HIM?! Why? What could he have possibly done to make you have sex with him?", Dinesh screamed in shock pointing his finger at Monica.

"Dinesh, stop pointing your finger at my girlfriend or I will come there and shove it up your ass. Look around you, see where we are, and stop making an asshole of yourself and the rest of us in public.", I have never seen a finger go down so fast.

"You and him? Why?", Dinesh said, now going close to Monica and whispering to her.

By her looks, she seemed shocked and offended at first due to the abrupt confrontation, then she smirked and whispered something in Dinesh's ear that made his brown skin go red. He couldn't even look at her in the eye after that and promptly came next to me to set up his station, I chose to ignore it for now.

"Since when are you and Richard together?", Dinesh asked. Both me and Monica and queered our eyebrows at that. Didn't they see us kissing on the day I pulled off the prank on Gavin Belson. But Dinesh was a little thick when it came to these things. Erlich and Gilfoyle either knew or suspected. I had no clue about Jared.

"We can talk about this later when we are not on stage with mikes that can accidentally turn on. Let's just get this walkthrough done.", I interrupted before Monica could give a response to Dinesh.

I think she understood that I either wasn't in the mood or wasn't comfortable talking about it where we were right now so she moved on.

"Gentlemen I bring good tidings.", Erlich made an entrance on the stage. It looks like he didn't hear what went down just a few seconds before. "Turns out that Melcher is divorced, remarried and has put the previous relationship behind him completely. Problem Solved.", He said. I did my level best to control myself from laughing by closing my eyes and saying, "That's great."

"It sure is Richard! It sure as Hell is!", he said chucking and promptly went into the monologue mode. I watched it with unobvious enjoyment. Then Jared came running to help with the setup but I had to hurry him off to the booth as I didn't want to miss one of the best Erlich moments of the season.

Then things got even funnier as I got to personally see Gifoyle make Dinesh realize that Dinesh had fallen in love with a girl, because of a code he mistook as hers, which was actually written by Gilfoyle. Thus he had actually fallen in love with Gilfoyle. By the end of it, I was rolling on the floor laughing my ass off. My teammates might have thought I was losing it because the pressure was getting to me. But I didn't care, this was just too funny. "…would you like to masturbate to the subroutine that I just wrote?", oh I think I was going to die.

XxxxxX

I was sitting in the bar having drinks with the guys minus, Jared and Dinesh. Dinesh was probably right about now failing to hook up with the Java chick because of Gilfoyle mind fucking him. Then suddenly Dinesh came and sat down with a shell shocked expression on his face. I was trying my best to control my laughter as he and Gilfoyle talked, but my dam finally burst when Dinesh said, "Why is it that every time I am about to have sex with a lady,... he is all up in there somehow?"

"Richards in a good mood.", Erlich said putting a hand on my shoulder. "Oh, this is priceless. I don't think I have ever laughed this much!", I told my friends on the table, annoying Dinesh but getting a smirk from the rest of the two.

"Finally, it's just us. Guys, this round is on me…"Jared said as he came to our table but was immediately interrupted by Monica coming from somewhere with actual drinks in her hand. Thus stealing away Jared's thunder.

"Hey, Jared. Here you guys go. Drinks on me! To Pied Piper!" Monica said raising a glass along with us minus Jared. I knew this was the moment Jared was about to blow on Monica but I was not going to let that happen. It doesn't matter how funny it would be.

"Monica, can I speak to you for a minute," Jared asked. But before Monica could reply in the affirmative I interrupted, "Actually, I need to speak with Jared about something first, if you don't mind. I hope it's okay with you Jared?", I asked both of them. Monica just shrugged and Jared ever the polite guy did say yes even before I could finish my sentence.

I took him to another table and got us both scotch on the rocks. As we both clicked our glasses and took a sip, I started speaking I wanted to for a long long time, "Jared. How are you doing man?"

He was taken aback by the question, not expecting a personal one on one and instead expecting something work-related. "I am fine Richard." He lied with a smile, though his face said a different story.

"Come on man, both of us know that's not true. Have you looked at your face in the mirror? You look half dead. Your dark circles have dark circles." I told him and he looked away, probably embarrassed by the weakness. "Look Jared, you need to understand something. You are one of the five people, because of who Pied Piper exist today. And I don't know, how the fuck did you do it, somehow you have wormed your way into my life and become my most loyal confidant and best friend. Better than even Big Head.", I didn't expect him to start crying at that. I never got to finish telling him he was a valued employee and he needs to eat something and get some sleep. He just wouldn't stop crying. So I had to take him to his room, order him some room service, sit with him till he ate in between bouts of crying till he finally fell asleep from exhaustion. Poor guy! He must have had a really fucked up childhood to turn out like this. But I made a promise to myself, I would try to be the best friend I could to him till the day I died, as I would never find a better friend than him.

As I closed the door to his room, I felt my phone vibrate and saw it was Monica's message calling me to her room and telling me she was ambushed by Sherry. I didn't know whether to laugh or not, as it might have been an epic confrontation.

From what Monica told me when I went to her room, the confrontation had been epic. Sherry somehow either suspected or found out that I was seeing Monica and confronted her. She declared her undying love for me to Monica and told her we were destined to be together. And she also told Monica that she was a shiksa that was leading me astray with her feminine vile's. To escape her, Monica had told Sherry that she wasn't dating me and I was actually gay and into a polygamous relationship with Erlich, Dinesh, and Gilfoyle. By the end of the story. My laughter was unstoppable. This day just kept getting better and better.

Then I told her about what I talked with Jared. Or rather how I talked and he cried till I had dropped him off in his room sleeping.

By mutual agreement, we both said it was tiering and emotionally tremulous day and neither were in the mood for sex. However, cuddling was definitely on the table.

So there I was preparing for tomorrow with my girlfriend snuggling next to me.

Xxxxx

"So we are all good?", Monica asked as the whole gang minus Erlich walked into the backstage.

"We are great. I killed it. Our weissman score on all test is 2.89.", I said walking with a smirk leading the pack. "Right at the theoretical limit.", Gilfoyle continued.

"Yeah. All the edge modules are humming. Even on mobile. They can throw anything at us.", I said and Monical just nodded along pretending she understood most of what I said. The rest of the guys seemed happy with the development too. "Great. Well, good luck. I am gonna go find my seat.", she said turning around before thinking about kissing me and then stopping herself.

"Except for 3D video. It's still a bit hinky. Erlich better stir them away from that just to be safe.", I told Monica and the others as she was walking away. This got a feeling of fear on her face.

"Where the hell is Erlich?",Gilfoyle asked looking around.

"He wasn't with you guys this morning?", Monica said looking at Jared, Gilfoyle and Dinesh. To which they just shook their heads.

A few minutes later, when we were just about to go up and I was ready to pull the plug on the whole charade, Erlich finally waked in backstage still getting his head through the Steve Jobs T-Shirt he was wearing. "All right, Let's light this candle."

"Where the hell have you been?" Gilfoyle asked pissed!

"There have been some developments," Erlich said. "You know how I fucked Melcher's old wife? I fucked his new one too."

"What!", I said with as pretend shock expression I could make.

"Eh. Don't worry he is not going to find out. I left way before he came back last night and didn't go back this morning until 20 minutes after he had left.", Erlich said fussing over his t-shirt avoiding eye contact with us.

"You went back?", Gilfoyle said incredulously.

"How many times did you fuck this woman?", this time Dinesh said incredulously.

"The old wife or the new wife?", Erlich asked in genuine query.

"The new wife!", Dinesh exclaimed.

"Last night or this morning?", Erlich again asked in genuine confusion tilting his head to the side.

Gilfoyle turned to me and said, "Please allow me to kill him. I promise to clean up after."

I had to ignore him, less I laugh and give the game away. "What were you thinking? This is kind of a big day…." I said but was interrupted by Erlich's defensive rant, "Relax, he is not going to find out and she is not going to tell him."

"How the fuck would you know that?", this was Dinesh this time questioning Erlich in a disbelieving tone.

"Because she would have to be crazy to tell him and I asked her point-blank, is she crazy and she said – No."Erlich said, justifying himself. No one was buying it though.

"Pied Piper, you are up." one of the staff informed us.

"Let's do it," Erlich said moving away in swagger. The rest of us stood there shaking our heads at his stupidity and our impending doom.

"Next up, Chief Visionary Erlich Bachman of Pied Piper!", the anchor announced our cue and we went on the stage taking our positions behind our stations.

Spotlight focused on Erlich as he emerged from the darkness with Motivational music playing in the background, "Since the dawn of time, mankind had sought to make things smaller but until now, no man…" and Erlich was tackled to the floor and was being plummeted by the husband who's wife he had sex with. I just couldn't control it. I started laughing. That took Dinesh and Gilfoyel out of their stupor and they looked at me questioningly but after a few seconds, their lips quirked as well.

"I think he knows", Gilfoyle commented on the brawl.

"Richard what are we going to do?", Dinesh asked in panic. As soon as I got my laughter under control, seeing security guards try and fail to pull the husband off of Erlich, I said four words that brought a smile to my face, "Call our lawyer of course."

Xxxxx

It is one thing to see it on tv but another thing to see a man almost piss himself at the threat of a billion-dollar lawsuit filed by one of Valley's best attorneys. He caved faster than a house made of tissue paper. Now we were in the finals and had bitching accommodations that I blackmailed out of the organizer instead of Erlich, as the poor guy was still shell shocked either in pain or by how quickly I moved to take advantage of the situation. Anyways, as we enter our new bitching Suite, I was getting pats on the back by the rest of the team, Monica included.

"I was so happy you got punched in the face Erlich, but now I am super happy!", Dinesh said seeing the room. "I am going to disrupt this bathroom.", Gilfoyle commented. "I don't think this couch pulls out, I guess I will get myself a roll away bed," Jared commented eyeing the couch.

"No, you will not. This is our room key, it's the suite next door. It has two bedrooms just like this one. One for you and another for me. Erlich can sleep on the couch here. He is in the dog house anyway.", I told Jared loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Oh come on guys, Richard, you cannot not give me the credit for this, I had to fuck a wife and take a punch but I got us into the finals.", Erlich said getting back in the grove.

"Sure you did. Let's go back downstairs to check out the competition.", I snorted as I told him.

XxxxxX

"….We are making all your files available for lightning-fast download. Accessible from any device. All the features will be seamlessly synced to hoolimail, hooli search and the whole hooli suite of hooli computing power.", Gavin Belson said giving my teammates the fear of their lives. "That is a lot of functionality.", Dinesh whispered to us in anxiety.

"Don't worry he can't come close to our Weissman score, even with all this extra shit. It's like a fancy car with a crappy engine." I told Dinesh to reassure him. Then the bomb dropped with Gavin showing the Weissman score to be the same as ours – 2.89. As far as the guys knew at least.

"….have the speed, we have the features and we have…Shakira!", Gavin Belson walked off the stage cueing Shakira and devastating my teammates. I tried to act sad while enjoying Shakira's performance. But it was really hard. She was sooo good!

XxxxxX

"They totally reverse engineered our whole compression engine", Gilfoyle said as we were all sitting in shock in an empty hall after today's presentation, bemoaning our fates. At least they were.

"They totally sniped up!", Dinesh said in a half shocked half moaning voice.

"We will be fine!", Erlich sniped from behind. Not ready to give up yet.

"What they judge this competition in terms of viability in the market place. I mean at best we are the worst version of Nucleus. I mean they have 50 modules and they are all awesome and we have 5 that barely work, I mean… we are still having trouble compressing 3d files. Who's lining up to buy that?", Dinesh said with his head in his hands.

"So the platform can't handle 3D files. You know what? 3D movies suck anyway. I could argue that this Gavin non-sense is a positive anyway.", Erlich said not ready to give up. "Please don't", Dinesh replied almost instinctively. "We just need to really dial it up for the big show tomorrow." Erlich continued without stopping.

"Dial what up? He just ruined us!", Dinesh screamed in Erlich's face. "Any until then we need to do what any wild animal does when cornered," Erlich said as he stood up ignoring Dinesh altogether.

"I agree.", I interjected for the first time in the conversation. That made everyone look at me in shock, Erlich included. "You do?", he asked. "I do." Nodding in affirmative to Erlich.

"Look, guys, I don't know about you but I am not ready to give up. We still have back up money to keep up with the burn rate, from the prank. Even if Peter pulls out after tomorrow. But..But but but… I am not yet ready to give up. So Erlich, get into Gavin's head. Gilfoyle help him but make sure he doesn't do something drastic.

Jared, go eat something and go to sleep. Dinesh, you are on Jared duty, more sure he doesn't die.", I told getting up from the seat and fixing my shirt. "Why me?", Dinesh wined. "Because after Jared, you are the most caring of us. Also, Jared is either going to collapse or go into stress-induced psychosis. Look at him, his eyes are already vacant and red. Get him to his room and sit on him! I am serious."

"I am fine.", Jared tried to feebly defend. "I will be the judge of that tomorrow after you have eaten and slept for 12 hours at least.", I said looking at him directly in the eye, which made him look away.

"And what are you going to do.", Gilfoyle asked this time.

"Try to pull a miracle out of my ass." I said already leaving the group behind.

XxxxxX

As I walked through the lobby, I saw Monica getting out of the elevator, leaving with her suitcase.

"Richard. Hi.", The greeting was warm but a significant side of sadness and pity mixed in.

"Hey. Suitcase?", I said pointing with my eyes at the object in her hand.

"Yeah" "Yeah, so.."

"Peter called." She said shaking her head in sadness. "He saw Erlich's presentation, such as it was and Gavins….", she said giving me a knowing look. "So he wants me to go back to Paulo Alto. There are just few other things that he want me working on.", she said cringing at the excuse peter gave her to give me.

"Especially, now that we are dead in the water.", I said smiling with my hands in my pockets.

"Listen..a… I am sorry you walked away from the money...the money like you did but I only wanted Peter to seed you because I thought you had a really great company. And that was before I found out how smart of a man you are. Its… Its just… that it didn't work out for you this time.", she said with her eyes getting puffy and red. Not crying but on the verge of doing so.

"Can I be honest with you? The day you convinced me to reject Gavin's offer was one of the best days of my life. Not because of Pied Piper. Not because I had a chance to build this potential Multi-Billion dollar startup. Certainly not because I got a chance to prank Gavin Belson. Hell not even fully because after a long, long time someone had shown trust in my capabilities. i.e. you.

The day I rejected Gavin's offer, was the best day of my life because,….. Because you entered my life that day.

Peter is right Monica. We are dead in the water.

You are also right, I am smart. So I know I will be fine.", I said smiling looking into her really red puffy eyes now, with my hand caressing her cheek, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, as I had grown accustomed to doing. "But let me tell you a secret," I said leaning into her ear to whisper, "I haven't given up yet." I said kissing her cheek and walking away into the elevator without looking back.

XxxxxX

I had spent the whole night going over the algorithm and patching the whole platform to run on middle-out. I hadn't done that till last night for security reasons. Everything was running smoothly.

As I came out of my bedroom, I saw whiteboards littered in the living room with dick equations, like in cannon. I also saw the whole gang, minus Monica, dressed and ready to leave, hoping against hope that I had something.

"Richard! Is the platform up and running? And what are you wearing!" Erlich asked in shock as I came out of my room with my laptop in my hand.

"A 50k, three-piece Armani suit. And yes it's running. I just made a few changes.", I said as I kept walking right out of the door of the suite. I heard shuffling and fast footsteps behind me trying to catch up.

"You spent 50k on a suit?", Dinesh asked incredulously.

"Dress to impress. Plus it was an impulse buy after the prank money came in.", I said as I kept walking.

"I hope you didn't make many more impulses buy's with that money. Because we are going to need it after today, if Pied Piper needs to continue running.", that was Gilfoyle.

"I might have made a few more impulse buys.", I said without looking back.

"Few?", Jared inquired anxiously, looking quiet better physically than yesterday.

"Few Dozen. Don't worry about it right now. Erlich, Gilfoyle, how did your mission go?" I asked, changing the topic.

"Good. Too good. Gavin almost gave me another black eye. Oh, I wished he did. I would have sued his pants off of him.", Erlich said moaning in regret. "What he said.", Gilfoyle provided.

"Jared feeling better?", I asked looking ahead and minding the steps I was walking down.

"I am very well, thank you for your caring Richard. It means a lot. Really really means a lot." He said as quietly as he could manage.

"Why are you thanking him? I was the one who took care of you.", Dinesh sniped.

"Thank you, Dinesh. And I am glad that you are doing better now Jared. You are one of us, we take care of our own.", I said as we finally reached the backstage.

"Talk to me Richard, what were you working on last night?", Gilfoyle asked.

"Well, I might have made a breakthrough.", I said navigating backstage to our assigned spots.

"Good because for a second we thought you committed suicide.", classic Erlich.

"So everything is working?", Gilfoyle continued.

"Umm…More or less."

"Yeah, I get it Richard you changed a lot, now just give me the basics so that I can roll with it.", Erlich asked stopping me mid-walk.

"You can't do it, the system is too different than what it was. I think I will just do it.", I told him.

"Come on Richard. You have a world-class showman on your team, unleash him.", he said gaining my attention by grabbing both my upper arms from the side.

"I know Erlich. And I appreciate it. But this is something that I need to do. Whether it succeeds or crashes and burns, it's going to be me facing the music either way. So keep your fingers crossed." , I told him and moved out of his grip.

"I hope you know what you are doing Richard.", Erlich said sighing. "So do I, my big hairy friend, so do I.", I told him and took my spot to be announced on stage.

XxxxxX

"All right, let's welcome our final team to the finals, of this years 'Ted-Crunch Disrupt: Start-up Battlefield.' Presenting for Pied Piper, Erlich Bachman." The anchor finished with applause from the crowd. "Actually there has been a change, Richard Hendrickson will be presenting for Pied Piper.", Erlich announced and that was my signal to step out of the shadows in a three-piece Armani suit earning a whistle from the crowd along with applause. Pretty sure that whistle was Monica. I didn't know she could whistle. "Richard!", Erlich said snapping me out of the trance of imagining Monica's whistling face and taking in the crowd. "Sorry got a little light-headed for a second", I said taking the mike and passing on the laptop and papers to Gilfoyle and Jared.

"I set them up for you, now knock 'em down.", Erlich whispered in my ear and I certainly was going to try.

"Hello, My name is Richard Hendrickson. I am the Founder and CEO of Pied Piper. That is the rest of my team, Jared out business wiz, Gilfoyle and Dinesh our dynamic duo of engineers and Erlich, our first investor and my landlord.

We are Pied Piper, a compression company. Well in your pamphlet it says we are a cloud-based multi-platform solution for user-focused compression, and we were, till yesterday." I said taking a pause and giving my attention to whole room one section at a time, just as Dale Carnegie's book said.

"But Now We Are Not. We Are Not. The reason for this is simple. Hooli seemed to be able to what we were trying to do, better... way better. The nucleus is built on the same engine as ours. Like EXACTLY the same, digest that for a second." I said taking another pause and looking at the middle section of the hall where I thought Gavin was sitting.

"And their Weissman score was 2.89, the same as ours." Another pause, creating a build-up for the big reveal. "Till YESTERDAY."

"But see the thing is, that they build a ton of great stuff, on top of what we have, that we can't compete with yet. So now we have to be something else. Well played Hooli.", I said giving a small chuckle at the end. I am pretty sure by now, everyone thought that I was having a nervous breakdown.

"Jared please display sheet 1," I told Jared, and he did so with a little bit of fumbling and the image came on screen. "We all know the most obvious way to do compression, is with Shannon coding, right? Top-Down? Then David Huffman came along and we got Bottom-up, correct?" I said half turning to the image being displayed behind me.

"Then Limple-Zip came up with left or right, yes? And for decades we used these codes to compress JPEGs, MPEGs, MP3s, ZIPs, all that stuff. But we all know that so there is no point talking about it. After's yesterday's Hooli presentation we were dead in the water. We could see the writing on the wall. But we refused to accept it. So…. I went and got us a miracle.

So I was thinking about ways to manipulate data yesterday, sitting on my bed, drinking a glass of scotch on the rocks, you know the usual. And I thought what if there was a way that data could be processed simultaneously from TOP-DOWN, BOTTOM-UP, LEFT-RIGHT, RIGHT-LEFT, and Crisscross… all simultaneously.

And it just came to me, I call it the Richard formula." The next paper showed, with just Richard Formula written on it instead of any diagrams.

"Yesterday night I completely rebuilt all our engines from scratch. I upgraded our modules as well, but I am not going to show them to you today. Now, this morning I only had time to do one compression test today and when I did, We hit a Weissman score of 6.", that created a lot of buzz in the room. I turned back to see the sheet with the 'Weissman score = 6' written on it.

"Now I know that the theoretical limit was 2.9 but at Pied Pieper we believe in making 'The impossible, Possible.'

Sorry, that was really corny, I am just making this us as I go along.", I said drawing considerable laughter from the crowd.

"I am.. I am sorry?" A judge said stopping me, just as I expected. "You scored a 6 on Weissman score? 6? More than double the theoretical limit?", he asked incredulously. Well, I can't blame the guy, if I was in his place, I would have the same reaction too.

"Yes, sir.", I replied simply, with calm confidence.

"And this a universal lossless compression engine? Text? Audio? Video?" he asked still in a disbelieving voice.

"Yes sir", I replied with the same calm certainty with a smile.

"Well then, I am sorry to interrupt, your eloquent presentation Richard, but rather than say anything more, why don't we just give you a file and we will see whether this thing can do what you say it does. Because if it can't, then we are all just wasting our time aren't we?", he challenged.

"Umm…Sounds about right. Let's do it.", I replied accepting the challenge with a chuckle and a smile. That I think shocked the judge.

"So we can give you any kind of file and you can compress it without degradation at this standard? 6?", he said pointing at the 6 written on the big screen.

"Yes, sir.", I think my calmness was beginning to unnerve him. I think it would be the same thing happening to Gavin Belson in the crowd.

"All right, give us a minute, please." He said seeming sure that I was bluffing. The judge sitting next to him seemed to have a file on a drive with him in his bag. That would be the test.

"Okay, Andy Stanford has a file for you. It's 132 gigabytes uncompressed and it's in 3D." he said handing me the file. I could hear Dinesh say 'Oh fuck', even as I was walking to him to hand over the file. "We are screwed!", he whispered near my ear anxiously even as he was handing the file over to Gilfoyle to be plugged in. "No, we are not. Trust me.", I told him.

"Dam it, I hope this works.", I head Erlich say.

The file started compressing. Just like in cannon got stuck at 40% and then way quicker than it did in cannon, it was finished.

"Looks like it's done?" the anchor said in confusion while giving commentary. That was abnormally fast for a 132gb file to be compressed.

"Wait, 13.2 gigs? What went wrong?" Gilfoyle asked with a broken heart.

"There is no way it compressed the whole thing, it should be 4 times that size."Dinesh said.

"I mean 13.2 gigs that a tenth of the size of the file, no way the whole file got compressed. This seems dubious, Richard.", the judge said.

"But is it though?", I asked with as much confidence as I could muster.

"Tell you what Richard, why don't we run a Weissman test to find out and see where you went wrong?", the judge said sarcastically probably figuring me a flop.

"Did I go wrong though? We can certainly run a Weissman test to find out." I said calmly and gave a gesture to Gilfoyle to start the test.

For every green tick that appeared next to a frame number on the screen, the shock from the crowd kept increasing. "Validated score 7.2", when those words appeared on the screen, the whole crowd erupted and before I knew it I was being hugged on all sides by my team.

"Ladies and gentlemen, obviously we are going to keep looking at this to verify but with a confirmed score of 7.2, Pied Piper appears to have tripled the best Weissman score ever measured. Tripled it! Pied Piper ladies and gentlemen, Let's hear it for them!" , the anchor said as I was being crushed by my teammates.

XxxxxX

I was at the after-party, shaking hands with the big wigs promising future sit-downs for Series A funding. But person I wanted to shake hands, no hug… scratch that do a lot more than hug I couldn't find anywhere.

"Hey.", aa that melodious sound was like music to my ears. I turned around and saw Monica almost running towards me with a gushing expressing on her face. She came close and wrapped me a very tight hug, one that I didn't want to let go any time soon, but unfortunately had too.

"Monica"

"Congratulation!" She said it with a chuckle in her gushing voice with her face all red from happiness. Happiness for me, I realized. At my success.

"You were amazing up there! You looked amazing up here! My my, I didn't know you cleaned up so nice, Mr. Hendricks.", she said caressing her hands all over my suit, shirt and tie and sending very pleasant shivers down my spine.

"Yeah well don't get used to it. Next time I buy a 50,000 dollar suit I will shoot myself. As it is, after the impulse buy I did contemplate actually doing it. Just looking forward to the occasion where I would get to wear it, stopped me."

"So you were planning to wear it when you gave the presentation?", she said chuckling while roaming her hand all over my clothing covered chest, as discreetly as she could. Clothing – dammit, what I wouldn't give to be naked and alone with her right now.

"Oh, fuck no. Not until I knew I had to do it. I just brought it with me on the off chance I had to do the presentation. I bought if for our date next week at Kalypso's. Which I realized, I hadn't asked you out yet on.", I said face-palming causing her surprised to turn into a chuckle.

"Well let us correct that shall we? My Lady Monica, you would do me the honor of accompanying me to a date next Friday?", I asked in the best British accent I could muster. With I think must have been quite good as her breath got caught in her throat for a second and she had to visibly gulp before answering. "Wow, you really can do a sexy accent. Every day I learn something new about you Richard Hendricks." She said smiling and giving me a kiss as an answer. "I shall pick you up at 7, My Lady.", I said in the same accent.

"Oh you will be picking me up tonight lover boy.", she said whispering in my ear and sending shiver very pleasant sensations down my spine again.

"So where were you this whole time?", I asked her, changing the topic and taking a few steps back so that my underwear could become a little less tight.

"Oh I was on the phone with Peter, he was watching the steam online via satellite. And he said he was 'Not unpleased'." She said with air quotes.

"Oh yeah, that's great. So we are going to go back to working together, huh?", I said taking her hand in mine.

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. It's going to get pretty insane for you Richard.", She said shaking her head and contemplating our future. Our. Has a nice ring to it.

"Doubt it. If you hadn't noticed, I already live in an insane asylum." I told her in monotone, which got her melodiously chortling started again.

"You are going to have more offers of funding that you know what to do with.", she said regaining her composure.

"I know what I am not going to do. Wipe my ass with 100 dollar bills like Erlich was talking about.", that got her sniggering again.

"Stop making me laugh. I am trying to be serious here.", she said hitting me on the chest. "Oh so abusive!" I fake messaged my chest. "So you are going to run a business, hire staff, rent offices, get an assistant. Peter is going to be a lot more hands-on and a lot tougher on you.", I just nodded my head and but doubted it mentally.

"People may try to take credit for your idea and try and sue you! How awesome is that?", she said in an excited whisper. "Woman, you get your jolly's up with some weird things.", I said in the British accent.

She said nothing but just hit me in the chest again. When she went to do it again, I caught her hand mid-air and whispered in her ear, "The next one is gonna cost you a kiss luv and the one after that your knickers.", I said taking a step back and watching the worlds have desired effect on her as she closed her eyes and felt a familiar tingle pass through her spine as well.

"I mean if you thought, it was crazy getting to this point you will not believe what it turns into. I mean pretty soon you could be managing thousands of employees, who are all looking up to you. And Gavin Belson, he is not going away any time soon. But it's going to be amazing.", she said pushing through what we both wanted to do, running away from this party and to our rooms.

"I know. And I am glad I am going to have you there with me every step of the way to catch me when I fall and I will do the same for you.", I said holding both her hands in mine and looking her directly in the eyes with as much affection as I could muster.

I think her breath got caught in her throat again. Yes, multiple gulps. Definitely. "Cheezy one-liner?" she asked with a hitched breath.

"No I think it's from a song, but for the life of me I can't remember", I told her as we were almost nose to nose. And could feel each other's breaths on our lips.

She looked into my eyes and promptly gave two tiny taps on my chest, without breaking eye contact. I looked down at my chest where one of her hands still stayed. Then I looked back up and I promptly gave her a kiss delivering on the first part of the promise. Then I took her hand running with her towards my room to fulfill the second part of the promise.

Tonight would be fun. Because soon I would go to war.

XxxxxX

AN: So on Alternate History I had to remove the soft core scene due to guidelines. But here it is unedited. Hope you guys like it. Let me know what you think.

~Till the next time.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter 6 – Piping Investor**_

**Swoosh**

**SMACK**

**Swoosh**

**SMACK**

**Swoosh**

**SMACK**

"Wow, you are really good at that!", Jared said as I was swinging the bat after the last hit.

"I used to have this Indian neighbor when I was young, taught me how to play cricket. I guess the principles carry over. And that guy is tossing me baby balls, that anyone could hit in their sleep.

Here come try." I said backing away from the base and offering the bat to Jared.

"No thank-you." He said shaking his head.

"Oh come on. I have been at this for 20 minutes. I am hungry and thirsty now. Someone take over." I said offering the bat to the onlooking crowd. There were no takers. Finally getting annoyed I just threw the bat on the ground and went to get myself a drink. Fucking pussies.

"Welcome to the annual Stern Taylor Fall classic. I would like to start by making a toast to our very special guest tonight, Richard Hendricks. Richard with your perfect game at tech-crunch disrupt a few weeks ago, we fell in love with you and your tech. Look we know everyone in the valley is after you and we know that you are probably going to go with Peter Gregory but we would love to have you come play on our team. Let us be your Series A financing. Cause together we would be a home run. So what do you say.", he put me on a giant fucking screen asking me that. Talk about putting people on the spot. "I will see what I can do.", I said with a smile and a raised glass, enough to satisfy the wolves for now.

"You know what Erlich, its feels great having all these firms suck up to us even though we are going to go with Peter and Raviga.", I told my friend standing next to me. It had been 4 weeks since Tech-Crunch and 4 weeks since we won Tech-Crunch. This was the honeymoon phase. I had stopped counting after 200 gifts, that now filled the garage, sent by one of these VC's just to get a piece of the Pied Piper Pie. It had also been 4 weeks since Monica and I had officially become girlfriend and boyfriend and were happily going steady. Though I still stayed with Erlich at the incubator, I spent at least 2-3 nights a week with Monica at her place. I was pretty sure I was getting more serious than I should with this relationship, as I didn't even know whether we would be able to weather the storm that was coming for us in the next few years.

So I will pay the relationship by the ear and for the rest, I will try to follow the plan as much as possible.

"Till they officially give us the term sheet, its open season. So enjoy it, my friend.", Erlich told me as he moved away probably to pitch one of his ideas from the incubator to all the VC floating around here.

Then I had the same conversation with Javeed from goolybib that cannon Richard had with a slight alteration, as we later went for a drink to a bar.

A storm was approaching and I had to be ready. Because I knew, come tomorrow, Peter Gregory won't be alive.

XxxxxX

"Do you mind if we ask, how did he die?", I asked the visibly heartbroken Monica. Peter must really have been a good mentor if he meant so much to her, that she was practically falling apart.

Then she gave us the long-winded explanation of how he died, through a comedy of errors, by a heart attack. The look on Erlich and my face was priceless.

As we were leaving, Erlich took out her phone and called Jared, "Jared, its Erlich, I need you to set up all the other VC meetings, ASAP. Line 'em up. Nuts to butts." I said nothing as I kept walking with him. By this point, against my better judgment, I had offered, to promote Erlich to the board. Thought that would not be immediately, but in the near future and it would depend on multiple criteria and conditions.

Mainly though, Erlich's place on the board would hinge on how useful he could prove to the company in the next year.

He wasn't the only one I had been considering when it came to a board seat. Where Erlich was a wild card, I had Jared's full loyalty and he had my full trust. So I had just gone ahead and had LaFlamme mail document signed by me promoting Jared to the Board, Which thankfully Peter had signed as well before he died. He would be my man on the board through and through. I had taken the whole gang to dinner last week where I had announced that Jared was our new board member. It was very embarrassing when we were asked to leave due to the uncontrollable loud crying of one member of our party.

We were all embarrassed to the roots but as soon as we left the restaurant we were laughing our asses off. We still celebrated Jared's promotion but did it at home with Chinese take out, lots of beer, 4 walls, and music that would muffle Jareds crying.

As soon as Erlich shut the phone he turned to me. "I know what you are going to say, Richard. Monica said Raviga is still going to fund us and we should sit tight, but understand this, there is something called Key-man-clause that all these VC's have. Once the key-man of the VC quits, is fired or dies, the investors have the option to pull their money out and overnight the VC evaporates. Look, I loved Peter Gregory more than even he loved me. But even if he were here, he would say the same thing as me….", Erlich said as I interrupted. "This is a business and we have a company to run", I completed his thought. "Exactly!", he said being shocked for a second.

"If you want to run a company you need to be an asshole. You taught me that.", I said looking at Erlich. He responded with a smile like a proud parent. "Good. So I am setting up the VC meetings.", I just nodded my head in acknowledgment as we sat in the car.

XxxxxX

" …. In time for CES and compress Nucleus out of the market.", I said finishing my pitch to the Stern-Taylor partner.

The response from the partners was unenthusiastic. I knew the reason for this of course. They were playing with us. "Umm… Yeah... Okay … I don't know.", one of the partners said.

"You don't what?", I asked standing next to the presentation monitor with an awkward smile on my face that went well with vulnerable old Richard.

"It doesn't seem worked out to me.", the same partner said.

Aa there it was.

Now it was time to break cover. The impish smile vanished from my face replaced by a cold calculating neutral look. I have that look to Erlich, tagging him in to speak. "Well, I mean it was worked out enough for Ted-Crunch Disrupt.", Erlich said taking over the focus of the partners.

"Yes and congratulations. You won 50 grand but you are asking us for 200 times that. Richard we all know about your amazing compression rate, but let's not be naïve here. You can't expect us to throw money at an algorithm and beat one of the largest tech companies in the world. So why don't you rework this a little and come back with a little more? Next week sound good? ", now the partner said looking at me.

I gave him the cold smile, that I have loved giving recently, which Dinesh are apparently dubbed the Predator Smile. I waked to the chair between Jared, who was a part of this meeting as a board member and Erlich who was part of the meeting as 10% owner of pied piper and potential board member. There was nice looking Granola Bar in the tray on the board table which I promptly took as I sat down and slowly started tearing the wrapping away. Excruciating slowly. I didn't say anything for 60 seconds as I was doing this and then just as I felt someone was about to interrupt my method acting I spoke, "You know right now Pied Piper is akin to a 6-foot dick coved in glitter and LSD. Dicks that ever VC in town wants to give a long sloppy lick.", I said taking a bite of the granola bar. Not yet looking at any of the partners sitting in front of me, giving my full concentration to the granola bar in my hand. "What makes you think we will even be in the market by next week? We don't need you. You need us.

So you can be a prude and keep your chastity belt on that doesn't want to throw money at an algorithm. That is perfectly fine. We can just go around town and find out how much other VC's are willing to put out, seeing our GIGANTIC DICK. Thank you for your time gentlemen.", I said this time, for the first time, looking at all the partners sitting opposite us, since I began my monologue. I gave the polite yet still predatory smile to all of them, especially the partner who had taken the lead during the meeting, Neg-ing us, while I licked the rest of the half-eaten Granola bar and put it on their very expensive table. Then got up and walked away.

I had almost reached the car by the time Jared and Erlich reached me. "Richard what was that?", Jared asked horrified. "I will tell you, what that was! That was awesome. I thought I was good at comebacks but the student has now surpassed the master." Erlich said bowing to me to the waist.

I smiled a little at Erlich's over the top adulation. But then got to the point, turning and leaning on the car facing them and looking them in the eyes with my arms folded. "Do both of you realized what was happening in there?", I asked looking at my current and future board members. "Aa…You tearing them a new asshole!", Erlich immediately responded. Jared, however, took his time before answering. But even he couldn't figure out the answer. Then I felt my phone vibrate in my pants. I took it out and found the mail I was expecting.

"Just read this and tell me if you get it.", I handed my phone to Jared so he could read the email from LaFlamme. "We just got offered 5 million at a 25 million post-money evaluation.", Jared read the email out loud for all 3 of us to hear. "They were negging us?!", Jared said in shock. "Holy shit. But it kind of makes sense. Everybody wants us but by shitting all over us they can bring our price down. But you shitting all over them, counteracted them shitting all over us. You neged a neg. Richard, it was brilliant. How did you know?", Erlich said giving his theory.

"That guy was all over me at AT&T park, like an ant over a donut. His sudden shift didn't make sense until I connected the dots and reacted accordingly.", I gave them my reasoning with a shrug.

"That was brilliant Richard. The CEO's role suits you. Jared where are we going next?", Erlich exclaimed at me and then asked Jared.

"Ross Loma Capital.", Jared replied.

"Good. Now I will handle this. You leave it to me, Richard. If they wanted to negotiate this, with hostility and rudeness, then they picked the wrong guy.", Erlich said already making a plan in his mind about what insults to hurl in the next meeting.

"Oh, I am leaving it to you. I am leaving it with both of you. I am not coming. You both are going for all the next meetings alone.", I said shocking them both.

"Richard we need you there.", Jared began to say but I stopped him by showing the palm of my hand.

"This is a test for both of you. You need to prove that you are worthy of the board seat I gave you and you need to prove you are worth a seat. Go to those meetings and get me offers. Do not discuss any specs. Jared, you know the business plan back and forth. You will give the presentation. Erlich, If Jared is the feather quill then you are the hammer. Make sure no one can bully Jared. And I know what you are thinking, I just used neging to get us the offer, you can do it better than me.

I already know you have the capacity to break a grown man down into tears." I said looking at Erlich which he interrupted with a "Thanks", but I continued, "But you need to keep something in mind when you decide what kind and level of asshole do you want to act at the next meetings. Because I have full confidence in you, that you will get me better offers, but we will be able to accept just 1 offer in the end. And by the end, if you are not careful you will have made yourself and probably Pied Piper their sworn enemy. What would happen in the future, when another one of your incubator ideas show promise after pied piper and you try to get meetings with VC's you will have ruthlessly insulted today. Just some food for thought.

Now get in the car, drop me off at the house and then go get me better term sheets!", I said getting in the car.

Neither Erlich nor Jared moved for a few minutes as I sat in the car and started working on my phone with headphones on.

XxxxxX

"I think I made the best decision of my life quitting hooli and crashing the launch party at your house that day.", Jared said looking at Erlich still standing outside of the car.

"I think I made the best decision in my life when I started incubator which led to Richard and his stupid music recognition app falling in my lap. And that he was so gullible at the start that I got him to give me 10%, I don't think I could get him to hand me toilet paper now.", Erlich said and then promptly started laughing. "Oh, this little mother fucker is going to make me a billionaire someday. Come on, let's get our CEO offers that would make him cream his pants." He said getting in the car.

XxxxxX

"How did it go?" Dinesh asked as Jared and Erlich entered the house. They didn't respond for a second and then there was spontaneous high five between both of them, then Erlich very enthusiastically took out his phone and readout, "just got an offer from Midland Okas, 15 million at 75 million dollar evaluation.

Everyone jumped and started cheering except for me. I sat there calmly sitting at my work station looking at the code on my laptop. "Richard isn't this amazing?", Dinesh asked trying to get my attention. I looked up from my laptop, to find the expecting faces of Jared and Erlich. They were standing there waiting for me to acknowledge their efforts. They had come to respect me, something they none of the people in this house except for Jared had for cannon Richard in the TV show.

"Well done.", I said with a smile. I didn't even have to ask how offensive they were, Jared volunteered the information himself. Erlich like my Granola bar routine so much that he bought a box of it on the way to the next meeting after dropping me off here. They mostly stuck to that and in some cases where they had to escalate, the said things about the office, culture and dressing style that was easily forgivable in the long run.

Just as Jared finished explaining, there was a knock on the door and Monica came in.

"Hey guys, This is Laurie Bream. She is the new managing partner at Raviga.", Monica said coming inside with another significantly older woman.

She looked around the room for me and found me sitting in my chair on my work station ignoring her and looking at my laptop.

From the reflection on the glass of the phone, I could see she had spotted me and was coming towards me. "You are Richard Hendricks. I recognize you from your photographs. It's very nice to meet you in person." She said standing next to my chair and extending her hand to me. I slowly looked up from my laptop to her, purposefully giving her and her hand a scrutinizing gaze, that would be considered the height of rudeness. But then before she backtracked I extend my own hand to shake hers. "Nice to meet you, Miss Bream. Please have a seat.", I say politely pointing with my hand to the office chair behind her. She takes a seat but does so reluctantly.

"Okay, so we did that." She said mentioning the handshake and completely avoids eye contact. "Gentlemen I aware of the degree of interest you are receiving from the other firms. I am aware that participation in your series A, will require a very competitive offer. But for numerous reasons, I believe it to be a prudent decision to present you with this." She said trying to hand a term sheet to me.

I didn't take the paper. I just looked at Jared, who was standing a little behind Laurie and he understood what I wanted and took the paper from Laurie. "20 million at 100 million dollar evaluation?", he read out loud to the shock of everyone in the room except for me and Laurie.

"This is way more than any other offer." Jared continued looking astonished at squiggles of black lines on the paper in his hand.

"Correct. That is very much intentional. So, I believe that satisfies your requirements?", Laurie said looking to get up and leave as fast as she could.

Jared, Dinesh, and Erlich were just about ready to pop Champaign but one word from dropped the noise in the room to absolute zero. "No"

"What do you mean no?", Laurie asked confused.

"See Laurie, I don't know you. I like to research every person I work with, and when I found out everything I could about your work and decisions at Raviga. Well let's say, it left me wanting. You see, you are a very analytical person, but also a very safe player that hedged her bets. That's good from a business standpoint sometimes I suppose, but it can lead to a disaster when it comes to relationships.

But the good news for you is I liked Peter Gregory. Without him, I wouldn't be here today. I also like Monica very much, she was the one that convinced me not to play safe and go for what I wanted instead of selling my company before it was even born to Gavin Belson for 10 million dollars.

Now if this is going to work this is how it will work.", I said opening my drawer under the table and pulling out a bunch of clipped documents. "This piece of paper here says that we will be increasing two seats on the board. One for Raviga and another for Pied Piper. This document over here says that I can name anyone for the Pied Piper seat in the term of next one year before the seat expires if I haven't named anyone. This document over here says that one board seat of Raviga will be given to Monica over there. This document over here says, no member of the board, whether from Pied Piper or Raviga can be dismissed or replaced from the board without a majority vote from the rest of the board members.

Now I will work WITH Raviga, if you sign those documents tonight and send them to my lawyer. I don't need you to give us the money immediately, I will have to have my lawyer look it over and discuss it with my colleagues here, but none of that will happen if those papers aren't signed and mailed tonight to my lawyer.", everyone in room was looking in awe at me.

"If there is anything else?", I asked Laurie in a clearly dismissive tone, going back to working on my laptop.

"No, Mr. Hendricks. I will look these over and if everything is in order, I will sign them and send them to your lawyer. Your terms are acceptable. I will have Monica arrange a time for the signing of term sheets." She said moving out from the house as quickly as humanly possible.

"Oh shit. She is my ride, I will call you tomorrow Richard. Laurie wait!", Monica said running out.

Everyone else in the room started clapping. "To Richard, and the biggest pair of balls I have ever seen!", That was Gilfoyle. Then everyone started cheering. That did bring out the smile I was trying to control for so long, "Oh, that was exhausting!" I said returning to my normal mode.

XxxxxX

As Monica was trying to peak through the bathroom windows, I sneakily went up behind her, and suddenly whispered in her ear, "I didn't know your nickname was Peeping Tom". Before she could scream in shock my left hand was already on her mouth and my right hand had locked both her hands so she couldn't move.

She soon realized it was me, and mumbled Richard exasperatedly through the hand that was still on the mouth, after she tried and failed to kick me in the foot for scaring her. "You know this gives me a lot of ideas about the kinds of games we can play in the bedroom," I whispered in her ear, which sent pleasant sensation down her spine. As I withdrew my hands from her person, I made sure my right hand accidentally pinched one of her nipples on the way out. She squeaked very loudly at that but somehow got her voice under control halfway so as not to alert others in the house. Then she turned around and hit me three times with her very heavy bag.

That hurt.

"What's in there? Another bag of rocks?, I asked her messaging my arm where she hit.

"You scared the living daylights out of me.", she whispered angrily with a bit of blush mixed in.

"Umhmm. You were the one peeking through my bathroom. I think you the bigger culprit here. So what's up?", I asked leaning against the wall on the side of the house.

"What's up? What's up? What was that? And what's this story I have been hearing from all the VC's in town about a 6-foot dicks, granola bars, glitter and LSD.", She asked with genuine curiosity mixed with bafflement.

"Negotiation tactics. Will make excellent stories at out date tomorrow evening.", I told her.

"We have a date tomorrow evening?", she asked taking out her phone and checking her calendar.

"We do now. Let me make it official, want to go on a date tomorrow night after Peter's wake?", I asked her with my charming grin.

"You are impossible! Yes, I will go with you on a date. But what was that with Laurie today Richard?" At that, my face became serious again. "That was me securing my company's and our future. You now have indirect job security for the next 5 years. Your welcome.", Then it clicked to her what had I done and she promptly hugged me. She realized they couldn't fire her from Raviga until she was a part of the board. And they couldn't fire her from a board that is basically controlled by Richard with three seats, versus their two, one of which was hers. And she would never vote to fire herself. That meant that it would come down to 1 vs 4 if someone form Raviga ever tried to fire her.

"You know I was going to tell you that if anyone found out that I came back to meet you, I would be fired. But now I don't have that problem. Anyways I wanted to tell you, you should reject Lauries offer.", she told me. If she expected me to be shocked she was surprised.

"Because we valued half that, maybe. If we take less money, then we can set realistic targets, revenue-wise and achieve them and hence avoiding a down round which would have us fucked very badly. Would probably lead to the acquisition of pied piper. Did I miss anything?" I asked her, at her wide-eyed look.

"How...?", she asked in utter astonishment.

"Did Laurie sign the papers?", I asked her before answering.

"Yes, I mailed them to your lawyer myself before coming here.", she replied eager to get the answer.

"Do you know Goolibib?", I asked her to which she replied in the affirmative.

"Javeed used to be like a friend. I met him again at AT&T Park a few days ago, back during that VC party and we got talking. And as he told me his story, I realized he could have avoided all of what happened to him if he took less money in Series A.", I told her shrugging my shoulders. "He had a right-fit when I told him about my conclusion. Do you know what he said after he was done throwing tantrum? He said why did nobody ever tell him to take less money?" I said and then kissed Monica soundly till her Lips were swollen, "I am so happy that I have someone who can tell me things like that." I told her smiling, which she returned.

I will talk to Laurie tomorrow after Peter's memorial service. Sounds fine to you?", I asked her slinging an arm around her shoulder. She numbly nodded yes with a wicked smile on her face with those swollen lips.

"Now do you want to go to a bar and get a drink or got to your apartment?", I asked her.

"I think we should go to have a drink at my apartment. I think I will disclose our relationship to my office now, as they can't do jack shit about it.", she said giving me a kiss as I booked uber.

XxxxxX

"….I will miss my friend. Bye, Pete." Gavin Belson said from the stage Peter's memorial service.

"Maybe he is a human after all.", Monica said from beside me.

"I wouldn't bet on it." I said as I heard my mobile notification sound go off. I took out my phone, read the message, gave a resigned sigh and showed it to Monica. Upon looking at the initial content she snatched the phone away from my hand to read it properly.

"Gavin Belson is suing you!"

XxxxxX

AN: Apologies for the delay. Next Chapter will be posted now as an new years gift! Please let me know how did you find the chapter.


	7. Chapter 7

_**Chapter 7 – Runaway Devaluation**_

"…. What you were doing when working on Pied Piper? Did you do it on Hooli time, using hooli equipment or resources at any time?", My lawyer Ron LaFlamme asked me.

"No and No.", I told him with a straight face sitting on a chair across his desk.

"Great!", he said clapping his hand. "Always tell me that. Always tell yourself that. Because if you believe it, a jury will too.", he told me with excited hand gestures making his point. "We are going to win this right?", I asked him with a straight face.

"Look Rechie, if what you told me is the truth, and don't tell me if it isn't, then Gavin's got nothing here. Now we just need to find you a lawyer and you will be set.", He told me reassuringly. "I thought you were my lawyer." , I asked him running through the script.

"I am your lawyer but not a litigator. You are going to need one. Don't worry Richie. You are my boy, I got you. I know some people. I will make some calls. I will get you the best deal I can. We will get it done in 2 to 2.5 million tops.", he told me. "Isn't that a little high.", I asked him genuinely baffling at the cost.

"Says the guy with the fat term sheets. Look Richie, legal fees are usually worked into deals like this. You have Raviga. Don't worry about.", he tried to reassure me and I just nodded my head.

"Fine. But find me a good deal Ron. I mean it.", I told him getting up and starting to leave. Already knowing Raviga was going to run with its tail tucked behind its legs. Thank god the board seats were at least sorted.

Just as I was about to exit Ron's office, I saw him going for the Guitar on the wall. Probably to play something to relax. As I saw him fiddling with the guitar, I couldn't help but reminisce about missing my previous life, where I was a very good singer but had to leave my passion behind after failing to make it big in the industry and having to get a real job due to financial obligations.

"Hey Richie, do you want something? Do you play?", Ron asked noticing that I was at the door of his office and looking at his guitar with a longing expression.

"Yeah. A little bit. I haven't played since college. Do you mind if I give it a try?", I asked already on my way to Ron to take the Guitar he was offering.

"Sure man, let's hear something. If you are good, maybe we can jam together sometime.", he said encouragingly.

"Definitely.", I said starting to test the tuning of the guitar. Just as I was doing it, I was hit in the face with the voluptuous buxom of insight.

Oh, this is going to be good. Very good.

XxxxxX

As the guys and I were talking about the lawsuit sitting in the Incubator living room the next day, I head a knock on the door. Seeing Monica enter with a "Hey guys", I just smirked. She caught my smirk and thought it a smile and immediately felt guilty turning her eyes away from me.

"Monica.", I called to gain her attention. This also drew the attention of the rest of the guys to her. "It's not going to work you know.", I told her when she came into the living room, getting the confused look on her face. "Wearing the beige ensemble. No matter what you wear, you still look like the most beautiful girl I have seen.", her eyes widened at that, realizing that I was already 10 steps ahead and knew why she came here. Then I saw blush come on her cheeks as she recalled the last part I said.

"How did you know?", she asked. "Like I told you the other day. I studied up on Laurie. She chickened out, didn't she? And sent you to give us the bad news? Was the beige outfit your idea or hers?", I asked her, shocking the other occupants in the room.

"Hers.", she said reluctantly. I just shook my head with a faint smile on my face. "Wait what is happening? Can someone explain to me?", Jared asked. "Raviga backed out because of Laurie's very risk-averse personality," I told everyone shrugging. "You should go, Monica, you have delivered the message," I told her turning my chair away from her. "Richard look, Raviga is a different place right now… And Laurie… Laurie is…" she said trying and failing to form a rational comprehensible reason for Laurie to back out, but I interrupted, "Is a short-sighted idiot that just kicked the golden goose in the balls and she is going to regret it till the day she dies. That is my message to her when you see her again. Tell her that… word for word, Monica.", I said without turning my chair back to Monica.

"Look Richard I am sorry. But you have a stack of term sheets and other VC still want you. You should move quickly when you still have the momentum.", she tried to plead to me to get my attention. "Noted.", I told her still with my back turned, in an obvious dismissal tone.

"Richard…are we?", I could hear crackling in her voice. I audibly signed at that, I didn't want her to cry, "We are fine Monica. I will see you at your apartment tonight. Okay. But please leave now.", I told her without turning back. I don't think it reassured her very much.

"That was intense.", Jared said.

"That was stone cold. I respect that.", Gilfoyle chimed in.

"You know what Fuck Raviga, Fuck Laurie and Fuck Mo….", Erlich started saying but I interrupted him in between, "Don't finish that sentence Erlich. ", to which he promptly shut his mouth.

"What now?", Gilfoyle asked.

"Now Jared and Erlich will go back to the other VC's they met. And when they reject us, you will tell them the same thing I asked Monica to tell to Laurie.", I said getting back to work.

"Wait why would they reject us?", Jared asked.

"Because with the lawsuit and Raviga pulling out, we are radioactive. But I want you guys to try anyways.", I told Jared and Erlich.

"Fuck that. Richard, I promise will get you a sweet-ass deal to fuck. If I can't I shall change my name from Erlich.", he exclaimed as he got up and went to his room to get ready. "I will make some calls and arrange meetings with the VC's.", Jared said taking out his phone and moving to another room to make those calls.

"The rest of us are getting back to work.", I told Gilfoyle and Dinesh.

XxxxxX

When the day was finally over a defeated Jared and Erlich arrived back at our house.

Then the thing with Jared analyzing our burn rate happened. With the 50k we won from Tech-Crunch included wouldn't last us very long. With the whole Dinesh thing following.

The next day Jared told us that another VC has reached out to him, "A guy from Branscom ventures just texted me. They want to sit down for a meeting."

"Brandscom? That's a solid shop.", Erlich commented. "Yes. And do you know the best part, I told them about the Lawsuit. You know what they say? Bro's disclose. And they still want to meet us anyway. All of us. Engineers included.", Jared told us excitedly.

"That only happens at a second or third meeting. Technical due diligence. That's good. Very good. This means they are serious about funding us. Set up a meeting Jared.", Erlich told Jared and the rest of us excitedly.

"I will get right on it!" Jared said.

"No, you will not.", I interrupted for the first time in the conversation. "Why would they want to sit with the engineers in the first meeting. It's like what google did to yelp. Steve Jobs did to Xerox. They want to mind rape us. That's why they want the engineers there. We are not taking that meeting. We are not taking any meetings.", I told Jared.

Then the realization set in with everybody that we would have been seriously fucked if we took that meeting and didn't realize what was up, till it was too late.

"Aren't you being a little paranoid.", Dinesh asked, still not quite believing fully my reason for not taking the meeting.

"Maybe I am. But all my hunches had paid off so far. So I am going with my gut on this one.", I told Dinesh and the rest of the people in the group.

"Richard please, think about what if you are wrong? What if they are genuinely interested in investing with us?", Jared pleased with me still not believing that his 'Bro' would betray him like that.

"Ok Jared, you are my board member and my friend. I trust you. So if you insist we take that meeting, we will. All of us.", I told him sighing and smiling.

"Thank you, Richard! You will not regret it." He said going to another room to make that call.

"Guys, when we are there be on the lookout for brain rape. Till the issue with Gavin is solved the algorithm patent and copyright are in limbo. So our algorithm right now is our biggest asset. Do not take anything with you to that meeting that has it. And in no way shape or form disclose it during that meeting. Understood?", I told Dinesh, Gilfoyle and Erlich. "As the dark lord wills.", Gilfoyle gave his snarky commentary. He had started calling me Dark Lord from time to time because of the recent manipulative and cunning streak. I don't think old Richard would have ever expected admiration to come from Gilfoyle.

XxxxxX

"Fuck!", Erlich screamed and raged as he barged into through the front door of the house. The rest of us followed with Jared with his head hung low being the last to enter.

"Richard was right.", Dinesh was mumbling incoherently.

"Of course he was, He is the Dark Lord, the master manipulator! No one can out manipulate him.", Gilfoyle said going back to his work station and starting his computer.

"Richard I am so sorry. I should have realized…."Jared started to say with a face near tears.

"Forget about it, Jared. Shit happens and people fuck up. And there was no harm done, we got out as soon as it became obvious about what they wanted. And they didn't get anything. So we have nothing to worry about.", I tried to reassure Jared.

"Of course there is something to worry about. No VC in town will touch us. We will run out of capital in weeks. Without an investor, Hooli will beat us to CES in January. And once they beat us they will set an industry benchmark and we will be irrelevant. Let's face it, we are dead as a company.", Erlich raged.

Looking at everyone's depressed face I snorted and said, "Did you guys forget about the 4 million dollars I scammed from Gavin Belson?" I said bringing them out of their despair.

"But you said you spent it all.", Jared said. "No, I said 'It's gone', you guys just assumed I spent or lost it all. I was, however, making investments.", I told them bringing hope to their eyes.

"So you still have the 4 million dollars?", Dinesh asked with hope.

"No.", it was amusing to see his face fall so quicky from hope to despair again.

"I now have 14 million dollars.", I told them. Bringing a check out of my back pocket and giving it to Jared.

"I am funding our Series A round", I told them while Jared just stood there in shock.

"5 million dollars!", Jared exclaimed. "5 million dollars. That should be enough to last us till we build a prototype.", I said plainly. Then I was ambushed in a hug by Jared, which was soon joined by Erlich, with him saying, "Oh Richard you magnificent beast."

Dinesh joined in soon after.

"Get in here!" I called Gilfoyle opening space in the hug. "You will have to gut me like a fish and then salt and spit roast me on fire alive before I go anywhere near that.", he said in a dry voice turning around and going back to work. But as he turned away from us I caught a glimpse of a smile emerging on his face.

Then my pocket started vibrating. "Guys, guys my phone.", I said excusing myself from the still on-going hug.

"Oh is it? I just thought you got excited because of me.", Erlich said sarcastically which had me laughing.

Then I was bringing the phone to my face, I thought it must be Gavin if cannon is supposed to play out. Umm no… it was Monica. I never did go to her apartment to talk to her two days ago. I just texted her I was busy trying to save my company. And I will call her when I have time.

And I was busy. I had invested almost the whole 4 million dollars as soon as I had received it. I had invested 3 million in coin when it was going for 200 dollars per coin, at that point. Buying me roughly 15,000 coins. Right now I had cashed out 10,000 of those coins at the rate of 832 dollars per share, Giving me roughly 8 million in liquid cash. I was pretty sure in two months if I remembered correctly the price was going to go below 100 dollars. I planned to reinvest the rest of the 3 million I had on hand in it again when it happened.

The other million that I hadn't invested in coin, I was using to bet on games I knew the outcome of but being safe enough that I lost enough times in small amounts that no one would get suspicious. I had also shorted the companies I knew were going to blow up but no one saw coming. In fact, this turned out to be more lucrative than initially imagined, as I had converted the initial 1 million into 6 million. But I was constantly playing with that money, leveraging my future knowledge to make myself a hell of a lot of dough.

I had also planned to invest in companies like WeWork and get out before it blew up in a few years. And as far as coin goes, I planned to invest most of the money I had in it and get out by 2029, when the governments all over the world will ban coin and all crypto-currencies to save the global financial infrastructure and markets. But they will do so after coin reaches its peak value of 1 million in 2028.

But those are all plans for the future. For the past couple of days, I was scrambling to sell off coins and cash in other investments I had made so that I could scrounge up the 5 million I needed to put into Pied Piper.

That was one of the reasons I was had neglected to talk with Monica for the last 2 days. The other was...the other was... I was having feelings for Monica, that I had no business having so soon. They weren't and couldn't be rational. But something in the back of my mind was telling me they were. That pissed me off, as my rational side fought with it. This lead to me ignoring Monica, as I needed to get my head straight before I talked to her. I didn't want to lose her but I couldn't verbalize the feelings I was having for her as well. I just... I just couldn't.

Anyways, I once again rejected her call telling her with a text that I was busy. I know I was being petty, but I wasn't perfect. I wanted to see where this goes.

Then I heard a knock on the door. As the door opened in came Monica, when she saw me I cringed at being caught in a lie, well kind off. As the others guys greeted her she greeted them back cordially enough, but throughout it, her eyes were on me. When she found out about the cheque, here eyes went wide. I didn't say anything, just waited for her to come to me from across the room and begin the dialogue.

"Richard can we talk alone for a second?", she asked me. Not at all ready to accept no as an answer.

"Yeah sure, Let's go to my room.", I told her reluctantly, leading her to my room and once we were inside, she closed the door. Then before I knew it, she pushed me with all her might in anger, though I was able to catch myself for falling I had moved back quite a few steps in surprise.

"What do you want from me?" She said hitting me on the chest trying to push me back again, but this time I didn't move as I was prepared.

"Monic…", I tried to calm her down but she didn't let me. "I told you I tried. I really did. It wasn't my decision to not fund you.", she screamed at me.

"I know, okay.", I tell the now crying girl trying to get her into a hug, but she pushed both my arms away with all her might. "Then why are you punishing me? Why are you pushing me away?", she cried giving herself a hug with both her arms, standing a few steps away from me.

"Come on Monica! Punishing? You are talking as if I have had you whipped in the town square. I was busy. I told you. I sent you multiple texts. Do you think gathering funding after the company you trusted, shafted you, is easy? All of us have been scrambling for the last 3 days to get the funding. Look, Monica, like I told you I am not angry with you. In fact, I am not sure how I feel about you.", I told her which brought her tearing gaze up from the ground to me with a wide-eyed fearful gesture.

"I just needed time to get my feelings sorted," I told her looking at her in the eyes. But she withdrew into herself, looking around ready to bail out. "I…I think I should go.", she said turning back to me and moving towards the door to leave the room.

Shit! Shit! I think she misunderstood!

I didn't let her, however, catching her by the wrist. "Look hear me out, after this, I am not sure you would ever want to see me. But let me just get it out please.", She didn't turn to face me as I was holding her wrist, she kept looking at the door. But at least she stopped struggling to get her wrist out of my hand. Though I could feel her crying increase, silent though it was.

"Look, the day I met you I thought it was an amazing day. The day you convince me not to sell Pied Piper, I thought it was the best day of my life. But I was wrong. You proved me wrong on the day you kissed me for the first time. I thought that was the best day of my life. Then you went and proved me wrong again, the day I asked you to be my girlfriend. That night, when you were snuggling next to me in your room I though, no something I didn't know was missing from my life just clicked. Since that day…. You have driven me crazy. When I am working I think about you. When I am sleeping I think about you. Even when I am with you I think about you. I felt I was going growing crazy. I just needed a few days to sort my feeling about you.

I never knew I was a risk taker before I met you. Since then I have taken so many risks that it has completely upturned my life. I am about to take the biggest risk now. I know this could be the end of our relationship and everything we could have had. In a way, it might be even good for me if it ended. But I still desire from the bottom of my heart it never would.

Monica…Monica, I know its reckless and stupid and we have been going out less than a year…. But I think I am in love with you.", I said that and let her arm go, giving her a chance to walk away. She didn't move, I think she didn't even breathe for a few seconds when her face was hidden from my view. But then she turned around and collided into me trying to kiss the life out of me.

Outside my door, I could hear shuffling of feet. Guess the guys heard everything. Fuck it. Before I knew it both our clothes were on the floor. And we were lost in each other.

I didn't think she was ready to tell me the words but I was wrong. By the end of the night, she had confessed those three magical words. "I Love You"

The next day when I checked my phone and I was blown away. With the stuff with Monica, I had completely forgotten about Gavin Belson. I had forgotten that he would call Richard to meet up at the Mexican restaurant and vaguely threaten him to sell Pied Piper to Hooli. Looks like cannon happened and I wasn't here to play my part and butterflies flapped their wings.

I found three miscalls from Gavin Belson. Ohh but that wasn't what caused my shock, apparently as I wasn't there to pick up my phone, he took it as an insult. I am guessing there must have been some alcohol after that, as he left me messages. Messages in the form of Audio, Video, Text, and Pictures.

I opened the pictures first and apparently, he sent me everything from a pic giving me the middle finger to actually sending me a dick pic with the caption, "I am going to rape your Pied Piper's Ass with This!"

Then I opened the video file he had sent me, "You want to ignore me. You want to fight me. I will kill you and bury you, you mother fucker and no one will ever find your body."

The audio message in comparison was quite benign telling me that I made a mistake in ignoring him, who the hell he thought I was etc.

Text messages were varied but many of them contained worlds and letters threatening me with bodily harm.

Oh, mother fuck if there ever was a jackpot! But, but could I use this. Yes, I could use this to sue Gavin and it might work too or I could use this to make Gavin drop the Lawsuit against me, but was I ready to take that route? I had already started skirting cannon, but this…this had the potential to upturn the whole chessboard. I needed to stick to that chessboard for a little while longer as it made the game predictable, and thus in my favor. So if I go after Gavin using this, he will act like an animal cornered and lash out, thus making him unpredictable. Decisions. Decisions.

XxxxxX

"Thank you for coming to meet me," I told Gavin as he slid into the booth I was sitting in of the same Mexican restaurant in which we were supposed to meet last week.

"It's not like I had a choice!", he replied snarkily.

"Hey chill man. I am just being polite. So last night huh!", I left it hanging. The threat was implied. He didn't say anything as he didn't want to implicate himself even more. But from his face, I could see that he was seething with anger.

"Look, Gavin, first let me apologize for not picking up your call. My phone was on silent and I was busy and I didn't check my phone till morning, when I found….you know." I told him. That got an incredulous expression on his face which again turned to simmering anger. I wager, he thought either I was lying or telling the truth and I had no part in his self-destructive behavior last night. I think contemplating the second option, pissed him off more.

"Oh yeah. What were you doing?

Tell me, Richard, what were you doing that was so important that you ignored Gavin Belson's call?", he asked snarky, though I got the impression he didn't really want to know.

"You see since you sued me, VC's shit the beds in terror running away from Pied Piper, me and my girlfriend were having a rocky time in our relationship. Last night the simmering blow up happened and we fought but fortunately made up later and ended up having make up sex, all night.", I told him, taking a nacho and dipping it salsa and taking a bite. "Umm.. this is good. You should have some."

He didn't touch the nachos. I could almost feel the anger both self-directed and directed towards me come off in waves through the air after he had gotten over the shock from my explanation.

"What is it going to take to make this go away? And before you say to drop the lawsuit, I can't. I had to convince the whole board to go along with it and I can't pull it without the board's authorization. And they are not going to drop the suit, believe me, I know." Gavin told me. I was pretty sure, if he really tried he could convince the board, but the suit was in my favor anyway, so I will let it go for now.

When he told me this, I didn't react. I folded my hand and sat as far back as I could and tried to mimic a contemplation gesture.

"Is that right?", I asked him. "Yes, it is. Now what is it going to take to make all of those videos and messages go away?", he asked me again, trying and failing to be intimidating from a disadvantageous position.

"You are making this real hard Gavin. That is the one thing I really wanted. I am afraid I will now have to go talk to my lawyer.", I said pretending to get up and walk away.

"Wait, wait… Please. Tell me what else can I do to make this go away. You want money? I will give you more money than you can dream.", he said trying to convince me. He had also grabbed my hand as I was pretending to get up trying to stop me from walk away. At that, I gave him a shark-like smile and sat back down, "I dream of billions Gavin. Now let's find out what's this worth to you."

Oh, I had him over the barrel fucked. He knew and so did I. But I didn't need him rattled or else he might do something drastic. "5 million dollars and I will sign a non-disclosure agreement to never talk about the messages again on any legal platform and will also, of course, delete them. Get your lawyer to call mine and make sure its remains hush hush, and I will do the same.

"And once again, I apologize for not picking up your call. But I thank you very very much for calling me. ", I said with a laugh, getting up and walking away leaving behind a very angry and fuming Gavin Belson.

It was amusing to think, Gavin Belson somehow managed to fund Pied Piper after wanting nothing more to destroy it and me.

XxxxxX

It took a week for all the paperwork to be signed. And I had to write an affidavit stating that I hadn't shown the pictures or videos to anyone from the time they were sent to anyone who wasn't me till when the agreements were signed. Then in front of Gavin's lawyer, I deleted everything. All in all, it was a very interesting and amusing way to make 5 million. I also made sure to put a clause in the agreement that if I died in accidental or mysterious death or was assaulted parties unknown, my lawyer will take everything and go to the police.

That was a fun week.

XxxxxX

AN: Happy new year guys. I know its late but I edited and added a lot to this chapter making it twice the size it originally was. Also I have been really busy this week. I will try to update either on sunday or by tuesday. Till then enjoy and let me know what you think.

~Till The Next Time


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer - I do not own Silicon Valley

_**Chapter 8 – Gavin**_

After the money cleared, one day I realized I was in the territory of season 2 episode 3 when I was almost run over by Russ Hanneman. As much as I wanted to say no, I wasn't going to before I took a ride in the bitching sports car and have 800 dollar meat.

As I talked with Russ, I realized everyone was still under the assumption that Pied Piper was still unfunded and sinking. Well, I am going to let them hold that assumption as long as possible.

Apparently, some journalists had caught wind of my meeting with Russ Hanneman in the restaurant and took a picture. By the end of the day, articles were out that Pied Piper was being acquired by Russ Hanneman. Monica came running in a panic when she read it.

"You are going into business with Russ- 'I put the Radio On Internet'- Hanneman!", she came in barging into my room accusing me.

"Of course, he promised me he will hook me up with Scarlet Johanson and let me borrow his Lamborghini from time to time, in exchange for me letting him buy my potential billion dollar company for peanuts. What more could a man ask for?", I said with a straight face. I kept that straight face for about 3 seconds before I started laughing loudly at Monica's gaping face. Suffice to say, Monica was equal parts embarrassed and amused with a little bit of pissed thrown in. Then she started hitting me with my pillow when I wouldn't stop laughing at her expense. Soon the pillow fight devolved into some thing a bit for adult and fun.

But I didn't stop teasing Monica about her overreaction for weeks.

With 5 million, we were set for the next 8 months even with the ridiculous expenditures I was planning on making in the next few months. And I had already started the team working on sales based model with a viable product to land in the market in 4 months.

"Richard are you even hearing me?", Jared said shaking me out of my day reminiscing.

"Yeah, I am sorry you were saying something about coders and engineers?", I asked Jared.

"Yes, Gilfoyle and Dinesh have both asked for 15 people team. Each! Richard, we simply can't afford that.", Jared told me.

"Okay, how many can we afford?", I asked Jared.

"At our current reserves, 5 engineers each. Six would be stretching it.", Jared said and I just nodded my head and went to talk to Dinesh and Gilfoyle in another room.

Five minutes later I was back in the kitchen with Jared, "They can make do with three each." I told him with a smirk. He gave a wide pleased smile at that.

XxxxxX

It was hilarious to see Gavin self-destruct on TV. It was even more hilarious to see Gavin compare the plight of billionaires with the plight of Jews in Nazi German. But you couldn't measure how entertaining it was to see his statement and him because of it being mocked on every, radio and TV station, late night shows, blogs, and Tech news articles.

XxxxxX

"Why are we here Richard?" The gang asked as I had took them to the middle of the highway. I just pointed both my index fingers up. "God?" Erlich asked me in question confused at my gesture.

"No, you idiots look behind you.", I told them pointing to the billboard. The billboard had a giant picture of me, in my one and only three-piece Armani suit with a smirk plastered on me with the words, "I am Pied Piper.", written next to me.

"What the fuck?!" that was Gilfoyle.

"You see Erlich, I took a page from your textbook and decided to fuck with Gavin. I found out his home address and rented 30 of these mother fuckers that are on his way to work. The biggest one of them all in the direct field of view from Gavin's office at hooli.

"So how do you like it?", I asked my team.

"Richard how much did it cost?", Jared asked me.

"For 8 weeks, 30 grand.", I told him. I could tell from Jared's face that he really wanted to object but didn't have the heart to.

"I don't see the difference between this and take a pile of money, dowsing it with gasoline and throwing a lit match on it.", Gilfoyle said in his sarcastic drawl. I couldn't help but laugh. "Gilfoyle did your mother ever tell you how mother fucking funny you are. And tell me this, if you had the option to do this to Dinesh, would you?", He thought about it for a few seconds then shrugged his shoulders in acceptance but not saying anything that would make him accept defeat.

"Anyways, I have a reason for doing this. Gavin has been on the attack. This is our response. This is also meant to piss him off and make a mistake. A mistake we can probably take advantage of.", I told them. And it was true. I felt that this provocation was necessary for the events of the season to proceed as they would have originally. Because my whole plan hinged on it.

"I have said this before, I will say this again. The student has surpassed the master.", Erlich said boisterously patting me on the back.

XxxxxX

"This is insulting! This is outrageous! This is the most hostile and aggressive act of provocation I have ever had to endure. It crosses every line of decency.

You see that billboard? Do you see that? This is War!", Gavin said screaming at his in house legal counsel.

"That Hendrick prick has fucked me over again and again and again. I want this suit to be more than a holding action I want to win it. Tell me what can we do here to make that happen?" , Gavin asked pacing in his office to his lawyers.

"Well, this suit is going to be a protracted and time-consuming ordeal. Having a crack legal team and top litigators give us an advantage over pied pier." The lawyer said but Gavin could feel bullshit oozing out of it. So he asked, "Translation?"

"Ultimately the suit will turn based on us proving that Pied Piper was created here at hooli. Now so far concrete evidence of that is thin." The lawyer said reluctantly.

"So fucking thicken it!", Gavin snapped.

"There might be a way. What if there were an individual here at hooli with whom Hendricks had a lot of contact with. What if this individual were arguably the member of the original pied piper team? What if we took steps to present this individual, in a light such that his talents were undeniable? Surely an individual this brilliant would move quickly up the ladder here at hooli. Surely he would be promoted rapidly and repeatedly, no? And surely these impressive promotions would lead the court to agree that someone this brilliant who was there at the inception of Pied Piper, must be integral to if not solely responsible for its creation?", the lawyer finished his pitch with a grin on his face…..

XxxxxX

AN: A smaller chapter. But I didn't have much to say or do in this episode. Also I am accepting Fan POV's and Interludes. If you have something to write from other characters Point of Views of how they view the events happening with them till now or even their perception of the SI. Please write it in the comments and I will make it a part of the story if it is good.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I do not own Silicon Valley

**_Chapter 9 – Engineering Servers_**

"Thanks for coming in and sitting down with us. We're really excited to meet a few good engineers to join the Pied Piper Team.", I said as it was time now to hire additional engineers to share the workload of the team.

"So why don't you tell us a little about yourself?", Jared asked from beside me as we were taking the interviews in the Kitchen of the incubator.

"I don't work before noon. Or after 2:00 PM. And I need to bring my dog to work. Are you... are you dog-friendly?", the guy, high as a kite in a red hoodie in front of me asked.

"Oh, yeah, you can bring your dog to work.", I said nodding my head.

"That's not what I asked. Are you dog-friendly?" he asked again with a curious and high face.

Then we met our next prospective employee, a black dude in a blue t-shirt. "Um Nice pool. Can my dog go in?", I wanted to say fuck no that's not hygienic. But for the sake of this conversation I said, "Yeah, yeah, we're very dog-friendly."

"Is there a lifeguard? - Um - 'Cause my dog can't swim.", I just look at him and then turned to Jared. Jared seems to have the same idea and looked at me in wonder at the weirdness of the statement. I pursed my lips very tightly so that I wouldn't laugh.

"It says here on your resume that from 2010 to 2011 you 'crushed it'?", I asked, reading from the resume.

"That's actually an old resume. It should also read that I crushed it from 2013 to present.", the bespectacled engineer in the hideous glasses said.

"So are we to understand that you did not "crush it" in 2012?", I had to put my hand on my mouth from laughing out loud at Jared's unintentionally witty remark.

"There was a medical situation preventing me from crushing it to my usual standards. So I had to take some time off until I was able to crush it at 100%, at which point I resumed crushing it full-time.". he said as if made perfect sense.

"So it says here that you're proficient in C++, code assembly for multiple processor architectures, and that you are a cyborg?", I said again reading from the resume of the half-dead gothic cyborg.

"That is correct short for a cybernetic organism. I came into this world of filth and pain with a congenital heart condition, requiring the installation of a pacemaker, upon which I am mortally dependent.", he said in a monotone voice just like a cyborg.

"Mmm.", Jared mumbled looking at me as I tried and failed to hide my smile.

"Wow, he's technically a cyborg.", I whispered to him.

"Yeah, yeah. Makes the resume accurate.", Jared said out loud.

"Look, we all know that I can make a shitload more money working for some multi-colored Happy Town in a hermetically-sealed box.

But permission to be honest?", cyborg said in a monotone with his palms joined on the table.

"Permission granted.", Jared said. But he didn't say anything yet just looking at Jared with a small creepy smile.

"I like that you guys are so weird.", he finally spoke again, still in a monotone with a creepy smile.

"Mmm.", Jared just mumbled.

"Yes, we are the weird ones.", I said sarcastically with a snort. Though I don't think cyborg understood the sarcasm.

XxxxxX

After a few minutes, I was sitting with Jared, Dinesh, and Gilfoyle discussing the prospective employees. "So the rest of them were duds. But his cyborg guy seems like a solid engineer." I asked passing around his resume to Dinesh and Gilfoyle.

"I agree with you, Richard. My only concern is that he is named Jared. Won't it get confusing around here with two Jared's? If you want I can go back to my original name, 'Donald.'", he said to all of us.

"No that's too big a hassle. We will just go with Other Jared.", Gilfoyle spoke up.

"OJ for short.", Dinesh piled on.

"Wait. Jared was here first. Should he be just Jared or Original Jared?", I got into a bit of fun as well.

"Thank you, Richard. I was just about to say the same thing.", Jared said looking at me with a smile for taking his side. "But don't you think OJ is a little controversial?", Jared continued.

"You should be flattered. OJ Simpson is one of the most recognizable people on the planet", Gilfoyle continued ribbing Jared.

"Was that Jared Patakian I saw exiting the house?", Erlich said barging into his kitchen.

"Yes, we just interviewed him.", Jared told him. "We think he's great.", Jared continued. I didn't say anything giving my full attention to Erlich.

"He actually is great. I tried to hire him for Aviato. But then he took the offer, shopped it around town, and got more dough at a different gig. I didn't care for the way that he handled it.

So I am going to have to err on the side of caution and say don't hire him.", Erlich said more tact and humility than in cannon.

"Well, I'm sorry that that happened to you, but it's not your call whether we hire someone or not.", Jared got up to confront Erlich. It looks like he is developing a backbone. Good for him.

"We've got to hire a lot of people, and he was the only one that we all agree on.", Jared pleaded with him with joined hands.

"But this is my house. I'm going to be on the board of this company. I mean, I must get dings, right?" at our confused faces, he expanded, "Dings? - Like in a jury or 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?'"

"Erlich, thank you for letting us stay in your house while we figure out what we need office-wise. Really. But I'm sorry. You don't get a say in this. We're going to hire the android." Jared said putting his foot down.

"He's a cyborg, Richard.", Erlich said completely ignoring Jared now and turning to me.

"Erlich let me ask you this, Do you really think he would do that? Use our offer to shop around town for a better and then ditch us? Also, do you really don't want him with us?", I asked looking Erlich in the eye.

Erlich didn't answer for a few seconds, actually reflecting on what I asked and what he said then he nodded to me. "I am sure Richard."

In reply, I just took Cyborg's resume from Dinesh's hand and tore in two pieces in front of everybody.

"I am sorry Jared, but if Erlich feels so strongly about this guy then I will go with his instinct. Plus we just met the guy and I am not willing to create a dispute in this team over a guy we just met. Which would have happened between you and Erlich if we had hired him. Now, lets set up some more interviews. Gilfoyle, Dinesh come on let's get back to work." I said getting up from my seat and going towards my work station in the living room. I saw Jared's sad but understanding eyes. I saw respect and appreciation in Erlich, he even stopped me as I was leaving the room to say thanks to me.

Well, that's one useless argument avoided.

XxxxxX

So we were now meeting Carla. Who I was very excited to meet. Not only because she seemed like a really interesting character that should have been made a regular. But also because she was smoking hot with those big eyes and that funky punk rock like hair.

"I'm using VP9 ABR to reduce bits and using WebRTC to carry the bulk of the load via p2p.

So basically I pay for one tiny-ass outgoing stream and the user's ISP picks up the whole tab.", she said.

"The users pay for all that bandwidth, not you? Wow, that could save us a ton of money.", I told her genuinely in shock.

"Yeah, a shit ton.". she said casually nodding her head.

"And do you think you could integrate it into our platform by January in time for CES?", liking this girl more and more.

"Look, I'm not going to get in your way. You know you design the engine. I just assemble the car. I could have an alpha of that up in a solid weekend of hacking.", wow this girl had an aura of cool around her.

"Wow." I exclaimed.

"Cool." Jared said.

"Plus I could count on one hand the number of people on earth who could handle sitting in a room with Dinesh and Gilfoyle all day.", she said and I snorted at that.

" So - All of that. Plus you're a woman.

What? No, I just mean we would absolutely love to have a strong woman working here.", Jared put a foot in his mouth.

"I'm not a 'woman engineer'.

I'm an 'engineer'.", she replied annoyed to Jared with air quotes.

"- Yeah, yeah.

\- Okay, no, no, no.

No, yes, of course.

We want to hire the best people who happen to be women, regardless of whether or not they are women.

That part is irrelevant." Jared kept on fumbling.

"Are you doing that interviewing thing where you try to rattle somebody to see if they freak out or not?", she asked with narrowed eyes to both of us.

"Uh, sadly no.", I said shaking my head in disappointment. "This is... that's just Jared." I continued.

"I wouldn't know how to do that.", Jared commented agreeing with me.

"Well, I am aggressively unemployed right now. So why don't you give me a call when you know what you want to do?" She said getting ready to leave.

"I am sorry, but we are not going to do that.", I told her in a solemn tone.

"Oh. I see. May I ask why?", she asked in a little disappointment.

"Cause I am giving you the job right now.", I said with a smile.

"Really!", she beamed at that.

"Really. Come on let's discuss the specifics.", I told her.

"Sure!", she exclaimed very perkily, with a dazzling smile.

No No. Bad Richard. You have a girlfriend. But she is so cute and hot. No Bad Richard. Very Very Bad Richard.

XxxxxX

I enter the living room with Jared where all the workstations are set up. It seems Carla had just arrived and was beginning her prank on Jared & Gilfoyle.

"Uh, Richard has something very important to tell you.", Jared said to the room as if introducing me on stage.

"Yes.

Ahem, so, Jared has informed me that as CEO, I need to be able to answer any questions that you might have about Pied Piper's harassment policy and workplace code of conduct.

Apparently, every company our size has to have one of those.

Essentially, if you find the workplace hostile in any way, you can submit a written complaint.

It will be completely anonymous.

Essentially, don't do or say anything that might offend anyone.

Okay? Thank you.

That's the policy.", I finished as quickly as I could and moved to the back of the room to enjoy the show that was about to start.

"- Okay.

Guys, um This is actually pretty serious.

I mean, we're all cool here, but we know each other.

So obviously, when Dinesh calls me retarded Frankenstein, or he describes me as AIDS lady, or Gilfoyle refers to me as effeminate K. D. Lang, I know this is a joke among friends." Jared said trying to specify the policy.

Oh, poor Jared.

" It's not a joke.", Dished replied.

"We're not friends," Gilfoyle commented.

"See, it's hilarious. But, um, as we grow, we're going to be adding a lot of new people to this company, and to this office, and some of them might not be as amused as I am by such strong language. Lawsuits happen.

So, questions?", Jared inquired.

"Oh, uh, I have a question.", Carla said raising her hand. Oh here it goes. It hasn't even started and I am already laughing.

"Mm-hmm."

"My best friend's nickname is Cunty." Carla said shocking Jared.

"I'm sorry, her name is…", Jared tried to reclarify thinking he might have heard it wrong. "Cunty. And I was hoping I could call her Cunty while I'm here.", Carla started her prank.

"Okay, that one's easy. No, you cannot.", Jared said shaking his head.

"Cause, you know, I want to have Cunty come visit me for lunch, and if I can't call Cunty "Cunty," then it's like, I'm not going to want to have Cunty over at all, which I feel like kind of violates my rights Yeah, um, it as a woman." Carla responded with an innocent face.

I couldn't control myself, I keeled over laughing.

"Okay, I'm going to have to get back to you on that one. Richard why are you laughing?", Jared asked me curious and confused.

"Her best friend's nickname is Cunty.", Gilfoyle shouted astonished amidst chuckles, that how did Jared not get that he was just played.

"That was awesome!", I said getting up from the ground as I held m" stomach in pain. "If nothing else, you are going to be very fun to be around Carla. My god you are the perfect combination of cute and hilarious.", I said walking out with a pouting Jared, never seeing a minute blush on her cheeks.

Bouts of laughter kept coming to me as I recalled the incident for the rest of the day. That night when I told the incident to Monica, she laughed too but not as hard as I thought she would. Also every time I mentioned Carla, her smile dimmed just a bit. Wonder why that was?

XxxxxX

"Hey Erlich, Russ Hannamen sent me these 2 passes for some charitable ball for billionaires. You want it?"

"Fuck yeah!"

Erlich might have grown on me, but that doesn't mean I am going to just pass up a chance to fuck with him.

XxxxxX

"….We went to Taco Bell.

Erlich, he started crying in Taco Bell.

He tried to blame the taco sauce.", I just had a very amusing conversation with Jin-Yang.

"Richard?" Carla called from behind me.

"Yes.", I replied as I turned around.

"OJ says you wanted to see me?" –

"Yeah."

"Um, I don't want to say this any of this, at all, but several employees have lodged a complaint, against you.",I told her giving a knowing look as we sat across the kitchen counter from each other.

"For what?", she asked with a smirk.

"Um for making this a hostile workplace.

By, quote, 'repeatedly rubbing our fucking faces in the fact that Richard Hendricks is a pussy who gave a new hire more than us.'" Jared read the written complaint next to me.

"Mm-hmm. Interesting. And which two of the several employees, lodged the complaint?", Carla asked giving a curious look to Jared.

"Actually, our policy guarantees anonymity, so I can't tell you that.", Jared said shaking his head.

"Look, you and I both know how much you make.

\- Are you fucking with them?", I asked with a smirk already knowing the answer.

"- Yeah, of course, I'm fucking with them.

I bought a fake Dolce & Gabbana bag at a swap meet to piss them off and apparently, it did.

And I lied and said I was getting a Mercedes.

Oh, I also left a fake credit-card statement open on my screen, - 'cause I thought they'd see it.

Did they see it?", she asked excitedly.

" - They saw it."

"- Yeah, sweet."

"- Carla.", I said in a slightly abolishing tone.

"Okay, all right, but what I used to do to fuck with them involved gay porn and Photoshop, so I don't think that would be cool after OJ's big harassment speech."

I couldn't control myself and started laughing wildly at that. It took me a few minutes to control myself. "Ohh man… You are something else. I haven't laughed like this since the last time Dinesh accidentally declared his love for Gilfoyle during the Tech-Crunch.", I told her laughing still finding it hard to control my laughter.

Even she started chuckling at that. "You have to tell me that story!", she begged.

"Maybe some other time. For now, just let up with pranks before you break those two. I need all the engineers fully functioning until I reach January."

"Fine!", she whined. "I will. But you have to promise to tell me the story of how you pranked Gavin Belson in full detail! Do we have a deal?", she asked extending her hand for us to shake on it.

I just shook my head in amusement and then shook her hand "Sure. But I thought everyone would have forgotten it by now."

"Are you kidding! You are a legend Richard. The whole valley was talking about you. You are an inspiration to all geeks like me. And besides, you were the biggest reason I joined Pied Piper.", she said the last part a little shyly.

I did my best to ignore that and its implications and move on.

"Thank you. Now, please remember our bargain, alright?"

"Sure Richard, anything for you.", she said with a teasing smirk and left with, if I am not mistaken, a little sway of her hips. Oh boy, this is going to be trouble.

"What just happened?" Jared asked.

"Nothing. Absolutely Nothing. Not one thing!", I said leaving the kitchen myself to get some fresh air. Maybe even call my girlfriend... the girlfriend I very very much love.

XxxxxX

So a few weeks passed and a lot happened. We finally found a commercial building with good security to establish as our office. The security was very good with biometric scans and triple verification to get in.

Dinesh was very pissed that I said no to the building with the supermodel office on the floor above us. Though Monica was suspiciously cheery when I told her about this.

Anyways the office set me back a 100k but it was fine. Now we were packing our shit at the incubator to move to the new office. Erlich's whole thing with the Kimono just got over and I could see he was super sad when I told him not only we are moving to a new office but also I was moving out.

I had leased a 3 bedroom pre-furnished apartment five-minute walk away from the new office.

Just as we were putting the last of the boxes in the truck Jared came running with panic on his face.

XxxxxX

"Hey, Richard?", he said anxiously.

"Oh, hey Jared."

"Richard, we need to talk. It's really important."

"Okay. Hey, guys, lets go inside. Jared wants to talk. By his expression, it doesn't sound like good news."

Once all of us were inside in the living room, Jared dropped the bomb.

"Richard, the hosting company that was going to be renting us server space just dropped their bid."

"Okay, well, let's just get servers from some other provider."

"Well, I just contacted five other web services companies, and they're all denying us.

I think I know what might be happening here.

All of them Rackspace, Softlayer, Amazon.

I mean, they can't afford to lose Hooli's business.", Jared explained to the horror of the people in the room.

"So Gavin Belson can just pick up the phone and make us radioactive to every single web-hosting service?", Dinesh exclaimed in shock.

"It's how these guys operate.", Jared said shrugging.

"I mean, when Bill Gates got married on Lanai, he rented every helicopter on the Hawaiian islands so that paparazzi couldn't use them to fly over.

Although in that case, it was a positive, because now you can imagine that wedding however you want.", Jared said giving an example to aggressive business practices.

"What? - Jared? Our entire platform is web-based.

We need servers for that.

What the fuck are we going to do?", Dinesh panicked.

"I know what the fuck we're going to do. But you're not going to like it." Gilfoyle said looking at all of us in the room. "We build our own servers.", Gilfoyle continued from the corner.

"Gilfoyle, servers are essentially a utility.

I mean, you wouldn't dig a well for water or build a generator for power.", Jared tried to reason with Gilfoyle.

"I think we should dig our own well and build our own generator.

I also think we should store a year's worth of food and ammunition in a blast cellar.

But we don't.

So good luck when the shit hits the fan.

Look, Richard, we're about precision, about shaving yoctoseconds off latency at every layer in the stack.

If we rent from a public cloud, we're using servers that are by definition generic and unpredictable.", He said trying to justify his idea to me.

"Yeah, but we're already up against a serious deadline. I mean, how long is building our own servers going to set us back? .", Dinesh said being a negative ninny again

"If I busted my ass? I could stand them up inside a week right here in the house.", Gilfoyle glared at Dinesh challengingly.

"Look, Richard, truth is, this is a huge positive.

I tried running the platform on my old coin rig. At 5200 gigaflops, your algorithm FLIES compared to normal CPUs.

No host could match the config that I built here in the house.

Oh, and also, we don't seem to have a choice.", Gilfoyle completed sarcastically.

"But that would cost a ton.", This time Jared said being a negative ninny.

Okay, that's it. Its time I Step In.

"I think Gilfoyle is right. Gilfoyle are you sure we can do this?", I said looking him directly in the eye.

"Yes.", simple and straight reply.

"How much time and money do you need to build servers that can handle millions of users?", I asked Gilfoyle making his eyes go wide at my ambition.

"Ma...ma...million!? Are you crazy Richard!", Dinesh the negative ninny said.

"If I have all the engineers helping me… a month and 500k, minimum.", He replied shocking everyone in the room.

"You will have a million and a month. Get it done. I am putting you in charge of it. Build me the best goddam servers this valley has ever seen." This shocked everyone in the room even further.

"Richard that will practically wipe out our cash reserves. If you really want to do it we will have to cut back on everything else, including the new office.", Jared tried to reason with me.

"We are not cutting back on anything. We are keeping the office and building the servers in the office. We certainly have enough space there to do it.", I said cutting off Jared right then and there, my mind made up.

"Trust me Jared, by the time the reserves are gone and we do not have a revenue stream, I will cut us another cheque. If Gilfolye says he could do it, I am inclined to trust the best god-dam engineer I have met in my life.", I told everyone in the room. I swear I saw Gilfoyle chest swell in pride.

Then I turned and focused all my attention on Gilfoyle. "Hire part-time engineers if you have to. I will have Jared help you with the hiring for the additional help. I will see if Monica can scrounge us up some talent as well. Dinesh you and I will be slogging on the platform. Erlich if you are up for it buddy we will need all hands on deck and you are a solid engineer if a bit rusty. We could use you." I said looking at Dinesh and Erlich. Erlich seemed pretty enthusiastic at not parting from the team.

Gilfoyle got up and promptly knelt on one knee with his head bowed and a hand-folded on his chest, "Thy will shall be done, Dark Lord."

I just chucked at his antics. "Very Well my Loyal Friend, its time to get to work!", I said hearing cheers all around.

XxxxxX

Just as we were halfway done setting up servers, Nucleus announced their preview by landing the deal to live stream a UFC fight. Ohh…things are going to heat up!

XxxxxX


	10. Omake 1 - By Victoro

_**OMAKE #1**_  
\- By Victoro

[Later in the Doc's Office]

**Doctor**: "_Well well well... I thought you'd never would be back Mr. Hendricks_"

**SI**!**chard**: "_Cut off the crap! What I've got_?"

**Doctor**: "_tsc tsc... I am sorry to inform, Mr. Hendricks, that you got a bad case of Isekaitis_."

**SI!chard**: "_Impossible_!"

**Doctor** : "_Did you got transported to another world as one of its heroes_?"

**SI!chard** : "_Yes but_ ..."

**Doctor** : "_Did you discover that s girl you barely interact with is now obsessed with you_?"

**SI!chard** : "_Yes but it was just once during Tech-Crunch and was a _ex!"

**Doctor** : "_Do you have a cute Software Engineer confessing that she entered your Hero's party because of you_?"

**SI!chard** : "..."

**Doctor** : "_Isekaitis my friend, in the worst cases your girlfriend will became Yandere and kill us all like JUST MONIKA (Hill)"._ ***blinks***

**Doctor: "**And YES that was a Doki Doki pun/reference. Judge me"

AN: Thank you for your contribution Victoro. I had too google most of the terms, but it was quiet funny! If you have an Omake you would like to contribute or would like to write a Interlude: POV. Please do so and if its good I will add it to the story.


	11. Chapter 10

Disclaimer - I do not own silicon valley. (AN - I had to reupload this chapter again because something went wrong.)

_**Chapter 10 – Bird Homicide**_

This was a big moment. Everything I had done till now was to make the base camp from which Pied Piper and I could scale the mountain of success.

We had finished the work on servers and they were up and running. Our office, that had the capacity for 100 people to easily work together was also up and running. Though so far, it did not even have a third of its capacity working in it. I had taken Jared aside and had him rectify the situation.

Though he was not pleased about it. Well, he was as displeased as Jared was could get, which be an equivalent of a tiny kitten pouting.

I had Jared hire 10 more engineers and coders despite his protest. I had even hired a team of 3 salespeople, even without having a product to sell.

Jared had annoyed me multiple times by telling me I was spending money too recklessly but all that time I could do nothing but tell him to trust me. That got him to shut up for a little while at least.

Spending a million on severs, I had spent another 200k on equipment and 100k on marketing. When I submitted the receipts to him, I swear Jared was about to have an aneurism. Even Monica had repeatedly cautioned me that I was spending too much money too recklessly. I had told her the same thing I told Jared, to trust me. Sadly that didn't have as much effect as it had on Jared.

Now here we were, my whole team of 30 people, most of them freshly hired, gathered to watch the Nucleus live stream of UFC.

"Let's hope this sucks.", Dinesh said and I took pleasure in knowing it would.

"Oh, good. Monica made it just in time.", Jared said as Monica was just about to enter through the transparent glass door after swiping her key card, putting the passcode in and scanning her biometrics. Yeah, I had gone overboard on security. And people had complained and compared the office to very high tech and comfortable jail. Pfff... Deal with it!

"Carla, looks like you won't be the only woman in the house for a change." Jared continued.

"Christ.", Carla said it, the rest of us thought it.

"One thing worse than being the only woman in a company - is being one of only two." She continued.

"Why's that?", Dinesh asked.

"Everybody puts this super-weird pressure on you to be friends. It's creepy.", she replied.

"Hey, did I miss it?", she came in and I thought she would give me a chaste kiss. But the kiss turned out to be a YAWOZA that left me dazed for a few seconds. I head a lot of whistles around me from my team. Once I regained my senses, I smiled at her but gave her a questioning look then I saw who we were in the direct view of when she kissed me. Carla. She did not look happy. God fucking dammit, I do not want to be dragged into this. "No. It hasn't started yet."

"Good.", Monica said dragging me and sitting us down on the couch together.

"Monica, I'd like to introduce you to Carla.", Jared the oblivious bastard said. "Carla, Monica.

Monica, Carla."

"What's up?" "Nice to meet you."

Is it me or were we suddenly transported to Syberia?

"I knew you two would hit it off." Oh, you poor naïve bastard.

"It's starting.", thank you Dinesh.

_Tonight, for the first time ever, streaming live in 4K resolution over the internet, UFC Fight Night, powered by Nucleus! No networks._

_No more middleman._

_No bullshit._

_We're bringing the fights straight to the fans._

_We're cutting the cord forever with UFC Fight Pass, powered by Nucleus._

_Tonight, you'll get ultimate fighting at the ultimate resolution._

_Nucleus puts 4K UHD video in a lossless compression chokehold and forces the competition to tap out._

"Oh! - Who's Douchebag?" "He sure likes to break stuff."

_We are live in Las Vegas._

And as soon as the stream starts, the picture starts crapping out.

"Are we getting a contact high off Erlich, or is the edge starting to warble?", Dinesh looked closely.

"No, I see it.", Carla said.

"Are they converting down to 24 frames?" I pointed out.

_The defense so far…._

"You see that frame judder as the camera pans? The picture's so blocky. It looks like Minecraft.", Gilfoyle commented.

"It doesn't make sense, it's supposed to be totally lossless. Let me dump their bitstream to disk and take a look.", Carla said getting to work.

"She's really smart.

But not afraid to be bawdy.", Oh Jared, you poor mother fucker. Monica's anger was evident at that comment by her tightening grip on my hand.

And just like that, the video froze as the audio kept going.

Exclamations of –

"Oh, my God."

"They are so fucked."

"Yeah, this is bad.", erupted from my team members. I found absolute Joy at hearing the glee in their voices.

_Attack with the left! He's hurt! He's down! He's hit! Oh!_ It's frozen.

_It is all over! Unbelievable! I have never, in all my years of watching fighting, seen a finishing combination more ferocious! What a spectacular finish by Molina! We're being told that the Nucleus live stream- - may have cut out during that exchange._

_If that is true, what a travesty._

"Fuck! Gavin Belson just shit everyone's pants." Dinesh exclaimed.

"He sure did.",Gilfoyle chimed in.

"The encoding is totally underpowered to cover up their defects. Nucleus just can't keep up with 4K live stream yet.", one of my newer engineers said.

"This is an opportunity.", Monica said looking at me.

"I know what you are thinking Luv. Go make those calls.", I told her giving a peck on the cheek.

Then I got up and got in front of the crowd.

"Guys like we just saw, Nucleus just shit the bed.", I said making eye contact with all of my, just over two dozen team members, as I heard cheers from them.

"I had expected the stream to not go perfectly but I hadn't expected that they would completely shit the bed. What I was betting on was whatever they did, we could one-up them and do better. Thus proving, even before January, that we have a better product.

Now, most of you have that have been hired in the last two weeks have been hired to help me with that plan.

Erlich, you know a lot of people in the industry. Go make some calls get me a live stream contract. I want the world to know we are ready to go to war.", I said nodding to Erlich. "On it boss man, I am friends with the owner and CEO of Homicide. They are doing an X-Sports thing right now, let me make a few calls." He said leaving the room taking out his phone.

"Jared you are friends with the Natural history museum director correct?", I asked Jared. "Well, I am their most loyal if not the most long-standing patron and am a good acquaintance with their director." He replied being modest.

"Good. Go talk to him if he is willing to let us live stream some animals or birds giving birth, having sex, hunting or something.", I gave Jared his marching orders.

"I will get right on it. I know just the thing.", he said practically running away.

"Marketing team, you want to keep your jobs, then get me 4k live stream contracts.", I ordered them like generals and they ran away to carry out orders.

"The rest of us engineers are going to pause the work on the platform a bit, and optimize the system for 4k UHD live streaming.

Gavin Belson shits the bed trying to do one live stream. We are going to do multiple, simultaneously, and succeed. Let's go people and get to work.", I said as the crowd began to disperse excitedly, then suddenly I stopped them, "And hey, food and drinks are on me tonight! Fuck Nucleus and Fuck Belson!", I said screaming in the air and heard roaring cheer back from my team.

XxxxxX

Erlich got us the homicide gig. Jared got us the live streaming feed of nesting pairs of California Condors and a Kuala enclosure. The sales team got me bubcus. All the people or corporations, the sales team approached said they first wanted to see a sample of our work.

That was fine. I would give the sales team some leeway, for now. My only regret in this whole scenario up till now was that I didn't get to see Erlich tell Gilfoyle that 'He looked like a ferret that gave up on himself six months ago'.

Now for both the Natural History Museum gigs, I had dispatched a team of engineers under Carla, Dinesh and Jared's supervision to set everything up.

Erlich, Monica, Gilfoyle and I were on the Homicide gig. I took Monica aside and told her to stick with Erlich and be the anvil while Erlich hammers double AA into giving us what we want. Basically, play good cop - bad cop with double AA till he gives us what we want. Turns outs Erlich's abrasive and overwhelming personality and Monica's beauty, charm, and calming personality was a good combination. He didn't even get a chance to fuck us over. Oh, and I told Blaine, the stunt man, that "You are going to die if you don't check your math", the moment I spotted the white board. Turns out, he was so thankful that he decided to take a picture with me and tweet to his 500k followers – _"This guy is the CEO of the awesome company - Pied Piper - which is going to be Live Streaming my stunt in 4K UHD online. Also, he is a great man as he just saved my life by spotting the mistake in my jump math within two seconds. **#GoPP**"_

The internet and blogs blew up after that.

When the D-Day came, the stunt was live-streamed successfully without any packet loss. When the Homicide steam was done, let's just say, if I said the internet and blogs went through a nuclear explosion, then it would be an understatement.

The whole valley now knew Pied Piper could do something that the Multi-Billion Dollar Hooli failed to do. Something Gavin Belson failed to do.

The whole valley now knew That Richard Hendricks & Piped Piper had just given a bloody nose to Gavin Belson & Hooli, again!

XxxxxX

Turns out Endframe did survive without us showing them our tech. The tech they had was nowhere close to us but was better than Nucleus. They had proved this by doing their own live stream of a basketball match, exactly one week after ous.

Huh! This was going to get interesting.

XxxxxX

AN: If you liked the chapter let me know by clicking favorite or leave a review in the comments section. The next chapter will be posted either on Sunday or Tuesday.

~Till the Next Time!


	12. Chapter 11

Disclaimer - I do not own Silicon Valley.

AN: Surprise. I am uploading a chapter early as I finished writing another chapter. Enjoy.

_**Chapter 11 - Porn Is The Norm**_

So after the homicide gig was a success the valley was buzzing about Pied Piper. No VC's had approached yet, still afraid of the lawsuit, Gavin Belson and Hooli. But there had been back-channeled attempts to get the conversation rolling. But I had ordered them to be completely ignored.

Still, I had just given an interview for wired magazine and . The message I had sent, with my answers and body language, about totally being unbothered by the case was going to rattle quite a few cages.

Finance wise I was a bit tight for now, as I had just infused another two million into the company from my own pocket. All other liquid funds I had, I had invested in coin, when it was 83 dollars a pop. For now I owned just over a 110k coins. I was probably one of the largest owners of coins in the world at this point. Even if Pied Piper doesn't work out, I will be a billionaire. That is for sure.

But that was a few years into the future. For now, I was tapped out in terms of liquid cash to infuse into the company. But the money that I did just invest was put to good use.

I hired a whole division for sales. 13 people in total. Their job was now to get us streaming and compressing deals. I had given them generous expense accounts to help them accomplish the job. I had told them go after small fish for now and get the revenue rolling, and leave the big fishes alone for now. Though I knew they were trying their best, I understood it would take time. But hopefully soon the revenue will start coming in.

I had also just bought a plot outside of the city to convert into a server farm into the future. As well as ordered Gilfoyle to construct another 500k worth server in the office.

Though this was thought of as an overreaction by my team, none of them voiced it. They had good reason to go along with my plan, as all of them so far had worked. But they were justified by their concerns. The servers we already had could bear the load of millions of users. Adding more servers would give the capacity to host over 15 million users, at the minimum.

"Richard we need to worry about this EndFrame company. The basketball tournament though had a few glitches and was not as good as ours, its presence in the market indicates competition.

They already had a sales-based model before us and have been working on getting lucrative deals for months.", Monica told me in a board meeting. She was present there, along with Laurie who I had seen, for the first time in months. The reason Laurie was present for the first time in a Pied Piper board meeting was that I had activated my extra board seat by giving it to Erlich after the success of the Homicide gig. This had led to the activation of Raviga's extra board seat as well, which was promptly grabbed by Laurie.

"He is right Richard. Even with your recent infusion of another two million, we have been burning money at a spectacular rate. We might not even make it to CES before the cash runs out.", Jared told me.

"If you so desire, Mr Hendricks, Raviga could fund a Series A round tomorrow for you.", Laurie tried to slyly interject, even though she did it in a hurried tone avoiding eye contact with everyone in the room. I don't know what spectrum she fell on but she had issue.

"Oh so now you want to infuse your money covered dick into Pied Piper's vagina now that you know she can earn money. You ditched us when we needed you. Raviga ditched us when we trusted you. I don't think either Richard or Pied Piper need your money. We will find another way.", My newest board member Erlich Bachman said.

"Though I don't condone his choice of words, I agree with him. Like the man said, We will find another way.", I said nodding in appreciation at Erlich for having my back.

"Then you better find it soon or you will have to fire over half the people you recently hired.", this time Monica told me in the business like no-bullshit tone. "We just cannot maintain this burn rate."

I sat there contemplating her words for a few seconds before I spoke.

"Monica what do you know about the deals EndFrame is recently working on. Any idea?", I asked her, hoping that she would give me an opening.

"Well, from what I have heard from my contacts in the valley, they have been in talks with InterSite…" Monica was interrupted as Erlich said, "Aa the porn site….", Erlich completed with no shame.

"Okay, Jared find me the CEO of Intersite. Set up a meeting if possible. If not just check her social media logins and tell where she is or going to be. I will get us a deal. Now I am off to research my target. Meeting dismissed.", I left the board room and so did Jared and Erlich. Monica and Laurie stayed behind.

XxxxxX

"It seems Mr Hendrick's it more naive than I thought. Does he think that by just meeting or ambushing the CEO of InterSite he will be able to get a deal. This isn't magic. These things... deals take months of back and fourth before they are done." Laurie said scoffing and shaking her head.

At that Monica started chuckling which garnered Laurie's attention and her confusion.

"Huh, you think that people would learn. But no. Some people never learn.", Monica said chuckling and shaking her head in dismay.

"What is that supposed to me mean, Miss Hall?", Laurie asked frowning.

"You know, I would say I told you so. But I have done that a hundred times before. Still, I will do it again, I told you we should have funded Pied Piper, lawsuit or not. I told you Richard is not only the smartest engineer I have ever met but also the most ruthless, cunning and talented CEO I have ever encountered.", Monica said goading Laurie.

"What I did was right at the time and still might prove to be, as the proceedings for the lawsuit against Richard and Pied Piper hasn't even started. There is still a high chance that Richard Hendricks might lose the lawsuit and his company with it. And you should resign from this board seat. You are biased and have put Raviga in a precarious position by being in a relationship with the CEO of Pied Piper. You can no longer be objective about any decisions you make on the board.

If I had known, you were sleeping with Mr Hendricks I would have never signed those papers." Laurie said in frustration.

"But you did and now without the majority vote you cannot remove me from the board, neither can you fire me from Raviga. Because even if you fire me, I will still hold the board seat for the next 5 years.", Monica continued gloating. Then her expression became sympathetic.

"Don't you understand why this happened? Why we are where we are?", she asked Laurie in a gentle tone without any previous gloating present.

"I don't understand what you mean?", Laurie's face became confused but still avoided eye contact.

"What I mean is, Richard knew. Richard is always 10 steps ahead of everybody. Richard knew Gavin would sue him as soon as he won the Tech Crunch Cup. Richard knew even before he met you what was your personality like, he even told it to your face. That's why he had you sign those papers so that he would never lose control of his company.

If you have been through the freeway, then you must have seen, the Pied Piper billboards with Richards arrogant smiling face on them. Did you recognize it was an almost exact copy of the picture of Gavin in the Hooli office? A few months ago we all thought he was crazy for spending thousands of dollars on billboards when they were struggling for funding and had no product. Did you know he put the biggest one of all the billboards directly in the view of Gavin Belson's office?

That kid who hasn't even been a CEO for a year was playing mind games with Gavin Belson. And he won. He wanted to frustrate Gavin and make him do a mistake trying to put Pied Piper and Richard Hendricks in their place. And he did that mistake. The…"

Monica was saying but was interrupted by Laurie with a stark realization, "The UFC fight!"

"Correct Laurie. Richard goaded Gavin Belson and Belson fell for it face first. The moment the fight was announced Richard started preparing by hiring more engineers and staff people than he needed or could afford at the time. He knew Gavin would fuck up somehow and he wanted to be ready to take advantage of it and he did.", Monica explained shaking her head.

"Even right now, I have no doubt Richard is going to get us a deal that will fix all the cash flow problems. From the months I have known Richard, I have understood a very fundamental rule about him. You can either stand with him or get out of his way. Because if you stand in his way, he will go through you. Fuck! When Gavin Belson tried to destroy his business a few months back, by blackballing him form renting any web hosting services, the man went and erected a server farm in his own office. I don't know if that isn't ingenuity and dedication then what is.", Monica said her peace and walked away. Leaving a stone-faced Laurie contemplating in the board room.

XxxxxX

"Miss Kendall.", I called the woman at the porn conference who was talking to some of her colleagues after her presentation. And oh boy what a presentation. I am both investing in and buying that iWack as soon as I can.

"Yeah.", she said turning around and spotting me.

Her eyes widened a little at seeing me. I guess I was eye-catching, cleaned up and smartly dressed, in my still only 50k Armani suit.

"Hello. My name is….", Before I could complete, she completed for me. "Richard Hendricks. The man all over the freeway billboards. That man who pranked Gavin Belson. The man whose company is being sued." She said shaking my hand.

"I am also the man with the best data compression technology on the market.", I told her with a charming smile.

"May I have a few minutes of your time ma'am.", I asked politely.

"My my my, Young, smart and respectful. You would do so well in many of our videos." She said chuckling before she continued. "Sure Mr Hendrick's, I like many people in the valley are very interested in you and would like to get to know you better.", she said.

"Well then, can I tempt you for a drink at the hotel bar?", I said giving her my elbow to swing her arm around.

"Sure. Why not.", she said.

We talked about a few inconsequential things till we reached the bar. "So I heard, you are doing a deal with a company called EndFrame. A 15 million dollar deal to be exact.", I commented, shocking her.

"How did you know about that?", she asked with narrowed eyes.

"I am very good at what I do ma'am", I just replied with a charming smile, totally not affecting her sour and suspicious mood.

"I am not sure I should be talking about this.", she said closing up.

"Sure. It's alright. But you can listen at least, correct?", I told her with a smile. She didn't reply. " Let me guess, maybe EndFrame is telling you something like they can lower your bandwidth and storage costs by delivering your new 4K video stream at 20 megabits per second," I told her getting an even more shocked expression. She got up to leave, but before she could take two steps I told her, "What if I told you I could save you millions in Bandwidth?" that stopped her on the spot.

"Do you still do not wish to even hear what I have to say Miss Kendall?", I asked being ever the polite gentleman as a waiter arrived with two pre-ordered Martinis.

She looked at me and then the drink. Then back at me again. Then she sighed and sat back down on her seat, with a small smile. "The algorithm is lossless. I can deliver the same 4K video, at seven megabits per second, 60 fps.

We are faster and have a higher quality than EndFrame at a third of the bit rate."

"Bullshit.", was her instant reply.

"Then let me prove it to you. Why would you want to waste, 15 million dollars on a third rate compression when in a few months your competitors will have a significantly better compression running their sites and you will have to jump in the bandwagon with us anyway to stay in the race.

"You are an awfully confident little fuck aren't you?", she asked snarkily.

"Since the day I was born ma'am.", I said smiling as I took a sip of my Martini. That elicited a chuckle from her as she took a sip from her Martini as well.

"You know I'm on the board of two charities and a no-kill animal shelter with Gavin Belson, right? The man who is suing you for stealing his IP.", she asked testing me.

"That lawsuit is about as strong as a house made out of single-ply tissue paper.", I told her looking directly in the eye.

"Is that right?", she asked grinning, trying to read me.

"Do you see me flinching.", I said with a cold look in my eyes.

"No. I suppose I do not.", she said smiling again.

"Now how do you suppose I test you Mr Hendricks?" she said examining me from top to bottom like a piece of meat.

I completely owned it and replied with a smile, "Miss Kendall, how do you like a bake-off." After 30 minutes of further discussion, both of us parted and two people from tables near mine in the hearing range got up and started following me.

When we were out of sight from the hotel bar, both of them jumped on my back hugging me. "That was brilliant Richard. Fucking brilliant. Oh, I love you so much you sweet ass mother fucker!", Erlich said still having me in a headlock and laughing uproariously.

"Erlich is right Richard. You had her wrapped around your finger from the start. It is beautiful to see you work Richard.", Jared said joining the impromptu group hug.

"Well, it's not a done deal yet. We still need to defeat EndFrame in compressing the files and then get all the lawyers and negotiators involved so that we are not screwed on the deal and we can keep leasing the algorithm to other companies." I told them, getting them back on planet earth.

"We will get it done Richard. Just like we have jumped over every roadblock till now, we will do this one as well.", Jared said with a smile.

"Thanks Jared. Oh and here I have something for you.", I said digging into my pocket and finding a key. He had a questioning look on his face looking at the key.

"I found out that you are currently homeless and that you were squatting in Erlich's garage without any of us knowing. That is the key to my house. I wish you had told me this a few weeks ago, I would have told you to move in then itself.", I told a now very emotional Jared.

"Richard, you don't ne….need to do this…. I am fine…", he said with red puffy eyes.

"No, you are not. Look, Jared, I am really sorry you didn't have a family growing up. But you are one of the best people I know. As fucked up as it is, I consider You, Gilfoyle, Dinesh and even Erlich my family. So think of it as your brother asking you to move in with him till you are ready or capable to move out.", I said putting the key in his palm and closing.

"Come on now let's go home and give everyone the good news.", I said getting in the car.

XxxxxX

Since there was no Russ Hanerman to put a tequila bottle on the delete key, the bake-off went smoothly. In fact, I had ensured that during bake-off there no alcohol of any kind in the room and all the computers had post-it notes on it saying- 'Mind the Delete Key'.

After the successful bake-off where we blew the competition out of the water, the lawyers got to work hammering out a deal. Where EndFrame had settled for 15 million, we asked for 50 million per year fees for the next 5 years for the privilege of using our algorithm. They first thought it absurd and blew us off. Then I started negotiating. I leveraged our better software and going to the competition as a negotiation tactic and had them settle for 40 million. In exchange, we would not lease the privilege to use our algorithm to any other porn site for the next 18 months. After that, it would be open season.

XxxxxX

AN: Next chapter will either be next Sunday or Tuesday. Though I don't think it will be posed on Alternate History. The reason being it has a little bit of soft core port with story mixed in which is essential to character development. I am not willing to cut it this time. So I will post a summary on AlternateHistory and the whole unedited chapter on FanFriction. You can find the story on FanFriction with my handle - Y-T3cH or the story tittle - Rise of Richard Hendricks.

Also if you liked the chapter, please leave me your reviews. The are food for writers. Please feed me. :)

~Till the Next Time


	13. Chapter 12

**AN: Hi guys... So sorry for the wait. When I posted my last chapter at the end of Jan, I went for a holiday. When I came back, this Cornona Virus shit hit India pretty hard. So right now I am at home because of the National Lockdown. But recently I have gotten into Naruto Fan friction. So haven't been motivated enough to post this... But worry not, I have a few more chapters ready and I will be posting them every few days till I run out. **

**_Chapter 12 - The Dinner_**

I slowed the heat on the stove as I heard the doorbell ring and moved out of the kitchen to the living room to open the front door.

"Hey", she said as he came in giving me a kiss. And moving inside to remove her coat and reveal simple but very tight and very hot top and jeans combo.

"Luv, you look delicious." Looking her up and down and then kissing her. She smiled into the kiss snaking her hands around my neck and the back of my head.

"Oh, you have no idea how much I needed that." She said stopping the kiss but not letting me go from her embrace.

"I kind off did, actually. That's why I called you here for a home-cooked meal too soothe what ails you My Lady.", I said in the British accent again. That got her smiling and slapping me lightly on my chest.

"Hmmm…. Something smells delicious. You are actually cooking?", she asked with a shock.

"Of course," I said moving out of the embrace and moving back to the kitchen with her following me. "I did promise you a home-cooked meal."

As she came into the kitchen she was shocked to see various pots and pans about boiling and simmering. "I just thought you said that to lure me here and to get into my pants.", she told me astonished.

"Oh, I am pretty sure you will be dropping your knickers for me tonight. But the offer of food was real.", I told her with a smirk.

"Pretty confident aren't we?", she said raising an eyebrow.

"In my ability to get you to drop your knickers for me? 100%!", I told her with a grin for which I promptly got a slap on my chest.

"Here taste this?", I said bringing the stirring wooden spoon with risotto in it to her mouth.

"Does it need anything."

"Oh my god! This is really good.", she exclaimed after tasting a bit from the spoon. Then she promptly found another steel spoon from the left drawer and took another bite of the risotto. "Ummm… How did you learn to cook like this?", she asked with her eyes closed still in bliss.

"This thing you might have heard called the internet.", I said snorting. "I have been practicing various recipes for several weeks so that I could lure you here with the enticing food and then repeatedly have my wicked way with you." I told her with a fake evil laugh at the end of which I promptly started coughing. That made her laugh in turn.

Once I finished cooking, I took the Garlic bread and freshly made spicy dipping cheese out of the oven and the microwave and took it to the small dining table in the kitchen. I left the Risotto in the pan to remain hot.

"So what are we having?", she asked me as she was setting the table for both of us.

"Garlic bread with homemade cheese dip, risotto and then finally Freshly cut strawberries with whipped cream," I told her placing the Garlic bread and dip on the table.

"Wow, you went the whole mile.", she said astonished.

"Well, you sounded like you needed it, on the phone. And I had a pretty interesting day myself.", I said taking a seat out for her and watching the pleasure on her face as I treated her like a Lady.

"Oh, it was. And I did need it. Thank you for doing this." She said with a smile and then started her story. "So you know Erlich and Jin-Yang were coming today to my office to pitch their app right?", I nodded in accent to it. "So Jin-Yang's app is about a crowdsourced map which would tell the customers which playground close to them is the least crowded.", she told me as I continued nodding my head and opened the bottle of red wine that was already on the table and pouring us both a glass.

"While they were getting in, they caught me outside the office having a…..", she said but stopped, biting her lip in nervousness contemplating my reaction. I rolled my eyes at that,

"Let me guess, they caught you having a cigarette?", I asked to her eyes going wide in shock again. "You know?"

"Of course I know! We have been dating for months! If I don't know my girlfriend liked to have the occasional smoke from time to time, even after months of being together then we have no business being together. Now continue with the story.", I said brushing her astonishment off which only served to make her more astonished and a bit guilty I think.

"I think those rat bastards ratted me out to Laurie because by lunch I am being called into an impromptu smoking intervention,"….. As she went on explaining I went into fits of laughter. "You know what she told me, she told me, 'No one ever died from second-hand heroine', I mean seriously. Now my office was filled with 'Say no to smoke teddy bears', cards and other stupid junk by the end of the day." By this time I was laughing hard.

"It's not funny!", she exclaimed indignantly. "It's a little funny love. You have to admit that.", I told her taking a sip of wine trying to bring my laughter under control. "I will do no such thing.", was her indignant reply but a little quirk of her lips. "And the story is not over yet. So Erlich and Jin-Yang came in the morning to pitch the app idea to me. After lunch, I called Erlich up and told him how much trouble he got me into because of their big mouths. I also called to tell him about the app.", she said finishing the last of the Garlic bread as I took away the dish with garlic bread and bowl with the dip back to the kitchen and placed them into the sink. Then I got the risotto out of the pan and into a serving bowl bringing it to our dinner table. "So how was the app actually? Any good?", I asked serving her a good helping of risotto and then serving myself.

"Ummm… Richard, I said this before but, wow this is too good."

"Thanks. Now on with the story."

"Impatient aren't you? So the app worked fine, in terms of concept. But then I figured, the same app could also be used by pedophiles to find out which playgrounds are least crowded and which would be their ideal hunting grounds.", I visibly cringed at that. "Yeah, that's exactly the face I made when I figured out. Then after lunch, I called Erlich and told him that. And I still don't know how, but he made me arrange a meeting between him and Laurie the same day. "How?", I asked astonished.

"I don't know how! It's like, we know he is a dick. But when he gets talking he has an uncanny ability to get his way!", she said still confused about how Erlich manipulated her to get her way.

"So anyway, we get to the meeting with Laurie, with Jin-Yang, Erlich and me. And he managed to twist the whole pitch and change the use of the app from finding playgrounds to finding crowdsourced smoker hot-spots to avoid. You should have seen it, Richard, he played Laurie like a fiddle.", this time I gave an astonished expression with a raised eye-brow.

"Yeah. And Laurie seemed really interested as well but then Jin-Yang in the whole view of the whole office lit a cigarette saying something about a special occasion." At that, I started laughing out loud again and Monica joined me after a few seconds trying and failing to stop the tsunami of laughter.

"So you are telling me Jin-Yang's chances of getting funded literally turned into smoke", I said as I continued laughing. "That was a bad joke!" she said but didn't stop laughing. "But all kidding aside, my image and credibility took a big hit today."

"Luv, you are smart, beautiful, determined, tenacious, beautiful; did I say beautiful twice; anyways what I mean is you are a fighter. I know you will be fine. Because that is the woman of my dreams I fell in love with and if you need me I will always be there for you to have a shoulder to lean on." I said bringing her hand to my lips and kissing it.

She smiled at that and then suddenly her smile dimmed and took the hand away. "What is your damage Richard?", she asked me with her narrowed eyes. "I am sorry, what?", I asked her in confusion.

"No man can be this perfect, you are ambitious but down to earth; you are ruthless and cunning when the situation calls for it but when you are with me or with your friends I have never seen you be anything but gentle and caring; you shower me with so much love and understanding that I am overwhelmed; but when we have sex it's like I see another whole facet of you, you demand my attention, you demand my obedience, you demand that I submit myself completely to you and somehow you have made me like….no love it.

Richard, we have been together less than a year, and somehow you have managed to make fall head over heels in love with you. And every time I imagine my life without you somehow I feel a crippling sense of loss, anxiety, and depression even contemplating it.

What are you doing to me Richard Hendricks.", she said in a trance-like state.

I didn't say anything, I just got up from my chair, took her hand and led her to the bedroom not coming out of it till the morning to have our strawberry with cream as breakfast.

XxxxX

It was 10 am and a Saturday. Both of us had decided to skip work for the day and take a 'us' day to spend together. We were sitting together in corner of the L shaped sofa with my back to the comfy corner and Monica's back to my chest. Both of us were in bathrobes which were only enticing our libidos more. But unfortunately, after a whole night of fun, we had decided that both us stank and we needed to take a shower, brush our teeth and get some food in us before we could continue last night's festivities.

Both of us were now sitting on a sofa joined together, watching some game on mute and having the cream-covered strawberries.

"So you didn't get to tell me last night, how your day go?" Monica said sitting in between my legs with her back touching my chest as I fed her a strawberry covered in cream with a spoon.

"Of course I didn't, before I could you were dragging me in the bedroom trying to squeeze the life out of my balls." I joked saying completely opposite of what happened.

She elbowed me into the stomach from the front of me. "Oufff, now I know why people say 'Love Hurts'. Oww oww stop pinching me woman or I will start pinching something you will really really enjoy!", I told her removing her pinching fingers from my side.

"Richardddd…", she warned.

"Fine. It's not as amusing as your smoking story but here it goes. So there is this network security guy at EndFrame. Seth Lee, I think his name is. He apparently got fired when Kendall declared the bake-off between us.", I started the story but was interrupted by Monica. "You are still calling it bake-off !?" She asked scoffing.

"Hey, I put some thought into that name. And in the future when they record the chronicles of Pied Piper, they shall forever call this part of our saga, a bake-off.", I said but then I heard her snort again.

"Do you want to laugh or do you want to hear the story.", I asked her ticking her sides making her erupt in laughter.

"Story Story… Richard stop! I am very ticklish.", she pleaded between giggling laughter and I finally relented.

"Fine!" I said snaking my hands around her and finding the perfect armrest. "Um Richard!", she said in an amused tone. "Shhh… Squeezing them helps me think." I said in just as amused tone continuing with the story.

"So this Seth Guy gets fired because somehow Pied Piper became privy to the details of the deal they had with InterSite. As he is the network security officer at EndFrame. He kept sending threatening messages to Gilfoyle and asking how did we get in his system.

Gilfoyle in reply just kept sending him pictures of people choking, followed by pictures of different kinds off balls. Indirectly telling him to…." I was saying as Monica completed for me, "…to choke on his balls. I get it. But did you really break into their system Richard?" she asked in a low voice.

"Do you really want to me to answer that?", I asked her. She didn't reply for a few seconds after which she turned back to look me in the eyes and said, "Yes. Because no matter what, we are in this together. We are going to be together.", she said kissing me.

I sighed with a smile looking at her and hearing that.

"Yes. But Gilfoyle didn't break in... I did. As I was researching EndFrame and its employees I came across selfies employees took in their office that were posted on instagram. In the background of one of those selfies, I saw post-it notes on their computers. I had Gilfoyle clean and zoom on it and it turns out it had their system, Id and password on it.", I told Monica and I had actually done this on a hunch and I lucked out.

"So even if they could prove we bust into their systems, which they have no way of doing, by the way, one of their own employees was responsible was putting a picture with the info in the background on instagram." I told her squeezing… her shoulder to reassure her and then let my hand resume its normal resting place.

She looked amazed at either my luck or ingenuity. I didn't know which.

"So what happened with Seth Lee?", she finally asked coming out of her amazed trance.

"Ohh he got so mad that he waited outside our office to ambush Gilfoyle which he successfully managed to do when all of us were returning home. But the mistake he did was to challenge Gilfoyle to a battle of words. Within minutes Gilfoyle had the man in tears. It was both sad and amusing to see.", I told her with a smirk.

"What will happen to Seth Lee now?", Monica asked from front of me biting her lip.

I heaved a sigh and said, "I already offered him a job, on the condition that he sign a bunch of legal documents that would prevent him from ever betraying us. Other than that I was going to ask you to send some job offers his way through your contacts in the valley. Because I don't think he wants to work for me much less work under Gilfoyle.", after I finished Monica turned back to face me and gave me a kiss.

"You are a kind ruthless man, Richard Hendricks.", she said smiling now completely facing me. "What is that supposed to mean?", I asked her with a smirk.

"I mean, you did what you had to, to save your company. Even if you had to go through people who could become collateral damage on the way. But you didn't feel enough guilt that you acted in a way that would jeopardize what you were building. But you also aren't cold enough to ignore the plight and pain of the person who was affected by your actions, though accidentally. That is the man I love Richard. I know, I am not supposed to. I am supposed to love a kind, gentle and caring man. But men like that are always walked all over by the people of the world.

You are a perfect balance Richard. You are the perfect man. Yin and Yang. Enough good inside of an asshole and enough asshole inside of the good in you." She said giving me a kiss and we began our festivities again.

"My my, Luv you should write poetry... You are amazing... Let me show you my devotio... I mean my appreciation...", I said with a small laugh as we started kissing and lost our selves in our selves...

XxxxX


	14. Chapter 13

**AN: Here is the next chapter guys, enjoy. Also I do not own Silicon Valley. **

_**Chapter 13 - Binding Arbitration**_

I had hoped this would happen. I really did. But I was prepared for it not happening. Still sitting in Big Head's boat drinking this really good bottle of cider, I thought luck was really shining on me.

"Holy shit.", I exclaimed going through Nucleus powered Hooli phone.

"Right." Bighead exclaimed taking a sip of his cider.

"This is Nucleus?", I asked to confirm in shock. "Yep.", he replied pulling the 'p'

"That is a beta of their entire mobile platform, and it sucks.", Big head exclaimed shaking his head.

"Yeah. I mean, the UX is, like, Soviet-era.", I knew it must have been bad when I remembered original Richard's reaction in cannon but this… holding this personally… well, it was hot garbage. And when I mean hot, I mean it literally, as I could feel the phone getting physically hotter if the phone isn't powered down after 10 minutes of use.

"When it stores photos, they actually get larger.

They never cracked Richard's method or as it's now being called, middle out.", Big Head said and I actually tested it and saw he was correct.

"Thanks for showing me this man. But why are you showing me this?" I asked Big Head looking him in the eye.

"I mean, can you even imagine what would happen if, like, a tech blog got their hands on that piece of shit?" Big head exclaimed.

"…"

"They'd tear it apart.", He was still waiting for me to connect the dots. Which I had but I was still going to stay silent and till he spits the words out himself.

"…", I think my silence was unnerving him a bit now.

"I mean, it could actually totally destroy Nucleus' release.", he said leaning in and saying it in almost a whisper.

"I bet Gavin would do, shit, anything to prevent that from happening, right?"

"…"

"Jesus, Richard, am I actually ahead of you on this? Take the phone, man.

It's yours.

Take it.", he finally spilled it out not being able to take silent treatment any longer.

"Are are you serious?" I asked him, speaking for the first time in a while.

"Yeah, dude.

Come on, I owe you.

I mean, I was about to quit Hooli and move home.

And then Gavin promoted me just to spite you.

And now he keeps promoting me for some inexplicable reason.

I mean, I haven't done anything, Richard I mean, less than nothing.", He said getting up and walking towards one of those two big steering wheel things.

"Well Yeah", I couldn't argue with the point it was true after all.

"But look at me now.

We're sitting on my boat, Richard, and that's because of you.

Soon we can sail it to fucking Hawaii or Sausalito.

Three more classes and I get my boat license.", He said with pride and happiness in his voice.

"Oh, really? How many classes does it take?", I asked with curiosity. "Three.", when he said that I really wanted to roll my eyes but I didn't. He was, after all, doing me a HUGE favor.

"Well, I wish you the best with that. Now I need to go call my lawyer.", I told him as I left his boat. This day was already good but it was about to get better.

XxxxX

"Binding arbitration? What's that?", As Dinesh asked the question with a literal question mark like face, I was just contemplating how well the day was going.

I was kind of pissed when Big Head called me at like 5 in the morning and told me to meet him two hours on this boat. My pissiness evaporated as I recalled what a meeting with Big Head on a boat would be. I hauled ass out of there so fast, I think Monica thought for a second that I was her teenage boy-friend that was sneaking out of her room at the sound of her parents approaching. I know this, as that is exactly what she texted me, at a time when regular people wake up.

After that, I went to meet my lawyer at his pilates class and took the class with him as I explained the matter to him.

Then he used back-channel contacts to let Gavin know that we had him by the balls.

In the afternoon, the conversation with Gavin happened as it had in the show. And now here we are. I had called the main group meeting to discuss something important. Those present included, Dinesh, Gilfoyle, Jared, Erlich, Monica and Me. The whole core group.

"Well, it's like a trial but massively accelerated.", I answered Dinesh's question coming out of my contemplation of how awesome the day had been.

"Next week we're gonna go in front of a retired judge and argue our whole lawsuit in just two days, and then we're done.", I continued explaining to the group as I saw all their eyes light up. Well except for Erlich who was as high as a kite.

"So this will all be resolved next week?" Jared asked with hope in his voice looking at me.

"I've always wanted to go to binding arbitration.", Erlich interjected.

"A weird thing to have always wanted to do. And the answer to your question Jared is yes."

"Everybody who's ever sued me has settled out of court.

Pussies.

Now finally I'll be able to take the stand, be a part of the big show.", Erlich continued high as a kite. I really need to install some no drugs during working hours policy. This cannot be a good example for the team. By the look in Monica's eye, she thought the same.

"No show.

This is a serious legal proceeding, okay?", Monica chided Erlich reminding all of us how serious the situation we were in was.

"And speaking to that, Ron Laflamme has got us a new litigator and we are meeting him in an hour. Here is his file. I requested him personally.", I said passing them the file with Pete Monahan written on it.

XxxxX

"Was I in possession of cocaine, amphetamines, amyl nitrate, also known as poppers, at the time of my arrest? In large quantities.

Did I have consensual intercourse with two women under the age of 18? Repeatedly.

I admit this.

Did I violate the Mann Act and transport them across state lines for sexual purposes? Alleged but not proven.

And, boy, they tried.

They tried.

Therefore, I was incarcerated and I was disbarred.", As Pete kept on giving his introduction, I could see the incredulous expressions on my team's face increase.

"You were disbarred? So you can't practice law?", Monica asked with a shocked expression and then focused her narrowed eyes on me wondering what game was I paying now.

"Not in open court in the State of California.

That's correct.

But this is arbitration.

I'm really grateful for the opportunity.

I'm turning my life around.

I've served my time.

Questions?", he said looking around. I guess he found varied expressions on everyone's faces. I was smiling, obviously happy and confident at my choice. The opinion, unfortunately, no one shared.

Erlich was still high and amused. The amused expression was shared by Gilfoyle. Jared was confused. Dinesh was both confused and probably thought I was going crazy to hire a guy like him. Monica, on the other hand, was furious thinking I was either playing a joke or wasn't taking this seriously enough.

"Mr. Monahan could you excuse us for a second and wait outside while we confer with the CEO of PIED PIPER.", she put a lot of stress in those words probably think I am not taking my job as CEO of Pied Piper seriously if I am trying to hire Pete.

"Isn't he great?", I asked to the room in a cheery tone, as soon as Pete left and the door closed. "Well, he is something.", Gilfoyle commented with an amused expression.

"Really Richard?", Monica asked incredulously.

I shrugged my shoulders at that, "Well we have a Satanist, a 30-year-old Pakistani virgin, A pothead investor, an asshole of a CEO and an Angel and an alien as a board member, I figured we could try out a pervert on a temporary basis.", I said with a smile to the amusement of all the members of the group.

"Look Richard if this is about money… We are flushed. We don't need to hire the guy just because he might come cheap.", Jared tried to understand my justification.

"It's not that Jared. If I was that concerned about that money I wouldn't have issued a 25k bonus to all the employees before the InterSite money came in. And I certainly wouldn't have given all of you 500k bonuses after the InterSite money came in. Well, all of you except for Erlich and Monica. Sorry, since you are not direct employees you don't get anything.", I told them, creating a happy expression on Jared, Gilfoyle and Dinesh's faces.

It also helped that I had given myself a 5 million bonus.

"That was a grave injustice!", Erlich said screaming out of his chair, then promptly fell back down on his chair again, "Ohh… make the world stop spinning.", all of us completely ignored Erlich at this point.

"Don't remind me of that. I am already regretting staying at Raviga when these kind of bonuses are going around.", Monica said mumbling. "But if this isn't about money, then why are you hiring that guy? Richard the Guy Can't Even PRACTICE LAW!", Monica questioned me with narrowed eyes.

"In Open court!", I raised my amused objection before I continued. "Because I like him. And he made a mistake. And I want to give him a second chance. I am going to pay him 25k for this, then when we win I will gift him a rehab stay, on my expense of course, and after that, I would hire him as an in-house litigator or counsel if he is clean and ready to work. Which I think he already is but I need doctors to sign off on it first for insurance purposes, according to Ron.", I answered Monica and looked around the room. No one was fully convinced. Some still looked pretty incredulous, especially Monica, Dinesh, and Jared. Finally, I decided to put my foot down.

"Look, I don't need you to understand what I am doing. I just need you to trust me. I have a hunch about this guy. And I am willing to take the risk. Just back me up.", I told each of them, looking them in the eye.

"But Richard we could lose the whole company if something goes wrong! Why don't we help the guy, if you really want to!? But give the case to those really expensive lawyers.", Jared tried to reason with me.

"Ohh… I have no doubt I am going to win and while doing so tear Gavin Belson a new asshole. With or without a lawyer. So please trust me. We will be fine. Okay. All right. Good meeting. Now I need to talk to Pete in private.", I said abruptly ending the meeting by getting up from my chair, which made them get up as well as they reluctantly left the room. Erlich needed some help and left being dragged on Dinesh and Jared's shoulder. Monica still wasn't convinced by the concerned expression on her face but decided to hold her tongue and trust my judgment, for now.

"Hey Pete, come in, can I talk to you about the case in private.", I went out and called Pete as he was waiting on one of the chairs tapping his leg. He gave a nervous smile as he walked inside the conference room. Oh, this was going to be fun.

XxxxX

And so it begins….

"All right, this is gonna be a long two days, so let's try to keep things brief.", The judge said settling in his chair and asking for opening statements.

"Your Honor, I think I can help speed things along.

We are willing to concede to all the numerous counts brought by Mr. Belson, except the ones regarding the ownership of intellectual property.", Pete said surprising the Judge.

"Is that right?", the judge said.

"On the non-solicit violation, my client is willing to concede that Donald Dunn was improperly hired.

And on the unjust enrichment charge, Richard will agree to repay Hooli, 39 dollars and 99 cents for the phone charger that he took home.", Pete said smirking at Hooli's army of lawyers. Man, this guy had swag.

"Thank you, Mr. Monahan, for accelerating the process.", the judge said sarcastically. "Okay, let's start this…."

XxxxX

So the thing with Big Head happened. Which was frankly their only play. The hooli legal team played Big Head up, quoting his promotions and meteoric rise through the ranks at Hooli, indicating that he must have been a part and co-creator of Pied Piper. And the judge looked like he believed the theory. But that was what it all was. Just a theory. They had no proof. If I wanted, I could have had my lawyer tear Big Head apart on the stand but like original Richard. I was also fond of the Big Head. He was the village idiot but a village idiot with a good heart. And it was because of him, this binding arbitration was even happening. So I was going to honor Big Head and cannon and let things take the course it would have taken.

Pete had decided to put Erlich on the stand to tear apart Big Heads testimony indirectly.

XxxxX

"Mr. Bachmann."

"Yes, sir?"

"You are the owner and sole proprietor of the Palo Alto-based hacker hostel in which Mr. Hendricks and Mr. Bighetti both resided. Is that correct?", Pete asked setting up Erlich.

"Yes, sir. That is, in fact, correct.", Erlich replied full of pride. "It has been called the Garden of Tech Eden.", Erlich continued.

"Is it also fair to say that every instinct you have as a businessman has been completely and totally wrong?", Pete said pressing the leg on the gas pedal.

"Sorry, what?", Erlich asked surprised.

"You hard of hearing, Mr. Bachmann?"

"No, I've heard everything."

"Aren't you considered a joke in this town?"

"I don't quite know where you're going with this.", Erlich said narrowing his eyes at my lawyer.

"Nor do I. Can you tell us where you're headed here, Mr. Monahan?", the judge asked interrupting Pete.

"Your Honor, if you are to accept Hooli's reverence for Mr. Bighetti as proof that he's a genius, then you must also accept Mr. Bachmann's reverence for Mr. Bighetti as proof that he's a moron. I'm simply establishing this type of logic, Your Honor, cuts both ways.", that was actually a brilliant move by Pete.

"I see. I'll allow it.", the judge said in understanding.

"Really? Because I don't.", Erlich tried to protest but was ignored wholesale.

"Mr. Bachmann, you have incubated a seemingly endless string of patently unsuccessful apps, haven't you?"

"No. No, that is not correct. I incubated Pied Piper. I saw the value in that.", Erlich said trying to refute the argument.

"Oh, did you? Isn't it true that you were about to evict Mr. Hendricks until he became the subject of a bidding war? You disliked Pied Piper, the one app in your hostel that showed promise."

"Well, I think that's a bit harsh. I mean, ev…"

"In fact, you tried to encourage Mr. Hendricks to change his app to be more like Mr. Bighetti's horrendous app called Nip Alert. Isn't that true?"

"Well, yes, I thought Nip Alert showed great promise."

"It did not show great promise. What it showed was the location of nearby women possessing erect nipples. And as such, Mr. Bighetti's grotesque creation was passed over by every investor in this town except you, because it was perverted.", Pete said giving Erlich a verbal kick in the balls.

"Well, I'll admit that I'll concede that the cultural moment may have passed but at the time."

"No, at the time, it was as misogynistic then as it is now, wasn't it, Mr. Bachmann?"

"It... yes, it had some major problems"

"Some major problems? Mr. Bachmann, a few moments ago you said that it showed great promise. You said that. I can have the court reporter read it back to you, Mr. Bachmann." Pete said catching Erlich in his own web of lies.

"I don't need her to read it back to me.", Erlich snapped at Pete.

"Mr. Bachmann, you liked it, didn't you? You liked Nip Alert.", he pressed Erlich. Who was just about to snap. Almost there. Almost there. Come on now.

"Okay, yes, yes! Fine! Yes, I liked it, even though it was a terrible app and it had no market potential. I was high when he pitched it and I like nipples." Erlich started raging.

"Thank you, Mr. Bachmann.", Pete tried to get Erlich off the stand. But Madonna wasn't done yet.

"It was a buggy, rapey piece of shit designed by an idiot. It was so bad that the first time that Richard tried to boot it up on his system, it crashed his laptop. It was in the shop for three days.

Cause it was a piece of shit! That I mean, among other things that weren't that were reasons why it was bad."Erlich finished his steam dying down. Though he didn't realize this time what damage he had done.

But I could see it on Pete's face. He thought we were fucked. As I had told him about the one time, I had actually used hooli equipment. I really wanted to reassure Pete. But now was not the time.

XxxxX

When the court was adjourned for a small recess, I brought Erlich in the loop and told him to back me up if needed. He agreed instantly, as he felt really guilty about stepping on one thing that had needed to be avoided, even though he had no idea it needed to be avoided.

Surprisingly this time around he seemed more regretful than he actually did in cannon. I guess having a guy's respect and thus having fear in them to disappoint you does help.

Then the recesses finally ended and I was called on the stand. Unlike original Richard though, I had no qualms about lying on the stand and making a scene of it.

"Mr. Hendricks, you are heterosexual, yes?", the hooli lawyer asked.

"Isn't that a little person. Do I have to answer it?", I asked looking at the judge.

"Does this have relevance counselor.", The judge directly asked the Hooli counselor. As even he felt it was personal and should not have to answer it.

"Yes, your honor.", the Hooli lady said confidently. Okay, let's see how long that confidence lasts.

"Please answer the question Mr. Richards.", the judge said.

"Um, yes. I am a heterosexual.", I told her pretending to be a nervous geek. I could see Gavin's eyes narrow at me. I guess he smelled something fishy.

"How long has it been since you were in a relationship with a woman, Mr. Hendricks? Two years? Three?", she asked probing.

"Hey, now that is offensive. What does my private life have to do with this case counselor?", I asked her directly this time going on the offensive.

"This better get relevant soon counselor, or I will hold you in contempt.",

"I promise it is relevant Mr. Hendricks, your honor. Please answer the question.", she ordered me.

I didn't answer the question. I just looked at the judge, waiting for him telling me to do so.

"Please answer the question, Mr. Hendricks. I promise if its relevance is not discovered soon than the counselor will be suitably punished.", the judge said.

"If you say so, your honor. Then no. I am in a relationship with a woman right now.", that took the wind out of her sails. I guess she was banking on a geek like me not having a girlfriend for a while. She turned and looked at big head who just shrugged his shoulders. Aa so he confirmed for them, original Richard used to call his laptop his girlfriend.

"You're under oath, Mr. Hendricks. Lying in court is a punishable offense." She said narrowing her eyes at me. Trying to obviously gain an upper hand. Oh, you poor stupid bitch.

"Okay. What the fuck? What business do you have who I am and am not dating? And how dare you accuse me of lying. You look a badly dressed gorilla that gave up on herself six months ago. Just because you are alone and pathetic doesn't mean everyone else is too.", at that she gave an offensive squawk and the judge started banging his gravel.

"Mr. Richard's mind where you are and watch your language. Another word out of you that is offensive you will be held in contempt. And you counselor, why are you provoking Mr. Richards. I need an answer now or I am holding you in contempt." The judge raged at both of us.

"Your honor, the question can link Mr. Hendricks to use of hooli equipment in creating Pied Piper and thus ruling the case in our favor. I think Mr. Richards realizes this and is purposefully lying and being difficult and uncooperative in answering questions. It is akin to the last gasp of a dying candle.", the lawyer hurriedly explained her reasoning to the judge so as to not be held in contempt.

"Mr. Hendricks?", the judge said looking at me.

"I don't know what she is going on about. But I am not lying. And I am offended that you would think I would lie.", I replied as indignantly as I could.

"Oh then you wouldn't mind proving it would you?", she said trying to catch me in my bluff. Moron!

"Erlich can you hand me my phone, please. It's on the table.", I asked Erlich. He found the phone but Pete came to deliver it to me as he whispered in my ear, "Keep doing whatever you are doing.", before going back to his place.

"Now I am not going to show this to everybody, so can you come beside the judge so both of you can satisfy your curiosity about my sex life." I said already going into the gallery folder where I had kept my pictures ready. Though I could see the counselor for hooli come forward with nervousness. I think she realizes I wasn't bluffing and she is about to get royally fucked.

"To answer your question, yes I have had girlfriends in the past 3 years. I am going to show you the proof of the two latest ones.

"This…", I said showing the toga party photo of me grinding between two Anastasia and Brooke on the dance floor. "Are the two girls I met about a year ago and head a threesome with.", I said with a smirk.

The hooli counselor instantly objected with a "Bullshit". Before the judge could reprimand, I showed them another selfie of all 3 of us in bed naked as the day we were born. "The girl on the left is Anastasia, and we went out after that night for two months. Sadly the one on the right was not interested in the 3some thing for more than one night. After two months, I dumped the girl on the left for the girl I have been dating for over 8 months now. We are pretty serious. She might be the one.", I told them as I showed them the picture of me and Monica at brunch in a bistro kissing. "And before you ask I am not going to show you naked pictures of my current girlfriend. If you want to get your jollies up then do what a normal person does and go watch porn. I said locking my phone as the screen went back.

"Thank you, Mr. Richards. Now you can leave the stand and go back to your seat. And once again I apologize that you had to prove that you are in fact a man who has had girlfriends past and present.", the judge told me with an embarrassed smile.

I just nodded and got up to leave, but was interrupted by the doomed Hooli counselor. "But I still have more questions."

"No you do not!", the judge raged at the counselor. "You have harassed Mr Richards enough. I will not have you maliciously attack him and his character just because you can't prove Pied Piper is Hooli intellectual property. You are done with Mr. Richards's counselor. Either submit some other proof or witness. If you can't do any of those then I am ending proceedings for today. Tomorrow we will have a judgment.

Dismissed", and just like that, I had won the case.

As I was walking to my side of the courtroom to sit on my chair, I could almost physically see the hope breaking on the faces of the Hooli contingent, Gavin included.

When we were leaving the courtroom, I told Pete to tell the judge to take a good look at hooli employment contracts.

By this time tomorrow, I was going to burry Gavin Belson.

XxxxX

When we reached our offices that evening, everyone wanted to celebrate hearing how the proceedings went today. But I put a complete stop to it saying that till it was done deal it would be bad luck to celebrate. Everyone might not have liked it but they understood.

Jared told me about the California condors egg and how just by calling the Museum to check up on it, had triggered a series of events because of which they were going to take down the camera's as they now thought the egg was dead. I just told him to not worry about it and that shit happens.

Monica first kissed me and then got pissed with me when she found out I still had naked pictures of girls I had slept in the past with, on my phone. This led to a night-long argument between us that somehow still ended in sex and me having pictures of our carnal activity on my phone. I swear, I have lived two lifetimes and sometimes still I can't understand women.

Even though we had sex the previous night, the next day she was not happy with me. I had to promise her to delete all naked pictures of the girls on my phone that I wasn't currently in a relationship with. Sometimes relationships can be a pain.

XxxxX

The next morning I was in the office with the rest of my core team watching as a forest guy or something climbed up to the nest to take out the cameras. We were watching it happen through the live stream on the big screen on the main floor of the office.

Only the five of us including me, Jared, Erlich, Dinesh, and Gilfoyle were actually paying attention. The other people in the office were buzzing and going about their regular jobs.

"All right, I am unclipped. If you're watching, I'm sorry. I'm gonna go ahead and leave this egg here. This camera does need to come down.", as the guy on the other side of the screen was saying that, only one thought was going through my mind. Slip motherfucker, Slip.

"That's good. He's leaving the egg.", Jared said in a somber tone.

At this Gifoyle and Dinesh started ribbing Jared about the Schrödinger's thought experiment and how he should have just left the egg alone.

"The bolts are all rusted out here. They're on their pretty good." He started pulling them. "Oh..oh….shit", and he slipped, tumbled and fell. I really wanted to jump and scream yes in excitement. But I somehow controlled myself.

Jared, on the other hand, screamed like a girl getting the attention of all our other employees.

"Holy shit. Jared, you killed a guy!", Dinesh exclaimed.

"Oh my god, I killed a guy!", Jared panicked

"No no. He is alive look!", I said pointing at the screen.

XxxxX

1 hr later –

"Hello? Can ANYONE HEAR ME", the guy on the screen cried

"This is unbelievable. There are seventeen thousand people watching this stream, and it's working flawlessly.", Dinesh exclaimer.

"Rebuffering events are below 0.5%. Even when his sobbing shakes the camera there's no blocking at all. And the quality is great.", Gilfoyle said eating his cornflakes watching the Bird guy on the big screen with the rest of my staff. Everyone in the office had stopped working and showing the new depths of human empathy everyone had grabbed some food or drinks and were sitting enjoying the man pleading for help as if it was a movie.

"This is good. Even with the homicide gig we only ever had 7000 people online watching. The Koalas as adorable as they are, have only a few hundred viewers at any time.", Dinesh said working from his workstation near the big screen. Then he continued, "More good news. There's a storm coming. There's no way the EMS guys can get up there. This could go on all day.", Dinesh said with an excited giggle.

I hadn't said anything yet. Like everyone else, I was glued to the screen watching a live version of 127hrs unfolding in 4k UHD quality.

"You guys are horrible human beings.", Jared exclaimed in his trademark soft voice looking around as he saw Pied Piper employees enjoying the scene unfolding before them with snacks as if it were a movie.

"Jared, don't worry that guy is alive and EMS guys will find him thanks to our live stream. You should be proud of yourself. If we hadn't put our cameras there when the guy would have gone to bring them down, no one would have known he fell and he would have died hungry, thirsty and in pain. But you convincing us to take up that live stream, might have just saved the guys life." I told him putting a hand on his shoulder. Jared looked up with a small smile, thankful for the pep-up but still not fully believing it.

Good. Consoling Jared – Check. Now let's get to work.

I walked towards the big screen and turned around, with my employees facing me and the big screen in my background. I got their attention clapping my hands together loudly. "Guys, Guys! Attention here, please. Thank you. As sad as or as amusing this is to some of you, we have an opportunity here. I want everyone, sales team and coders included to post a link to this on your social media accounts.

Sales team please get in touch with as many social influences as you can and offer them 5k for posting a link to this. If the social influencers have a following of more than 2 million you can offer them 20k for posting and promoting the link. Jared assign a million for this project. Now. You are in charge of this end of the project. Go. I SAID, Sales Team GO!", I gave them their marching orders and they went running to accomplish their marching orders.

"Engineers and coders, if the sales team does their job well we will have a lot of traffic. I know the server system Gilfoyle built can handle millions of viewers. But if everything goes down the way I think it will, even with that kind of capacity we might be stretched thin. Gilfoyle you are going to lead the team that will watch the servers. Dinesh you are on coders. Gilfoyle, the servers are your baby so I am putting you in charge here. Do what you have to, but make sure that feed doesn't go down.", I told Gilfoyle and the rest of the engineering and coding team. I got excited mummers from all of them as they ran towards their workstation. Dinesh with a little grumble at not being put in charge started assigning coders their tasks. Even Erlich joined in to help, looking at the excitement. From Gilfoyle I got a nod of respect, a hit of pride for me acknowledging his efforts and putting him in charge as well as an unsaid promise that he will get the task I assigned done.

"Guys we just jumped 29 thousand viewers. Buzz feed and Reddit just posted a linked to us.", Dinesh said in surprise looking at the uptick in his system. "Looks like this guy falling off a cliff was really good luck for us." He continued excitedly, not seeing the cringing faces of some of his fellow coders at that comment.

"Guys Manny Pacquio just posted a link to the live feed of this on his Twitter account. He has 2 million followers.", I head one of the engineers say from his station, just as I got off the phone with Blaine the stunt man from Homicide. He is the same guy who's life I had saved by pointing out the error in his math and who also coincidentally had 500k followers.

"Guys I got off the phone with Blaine from homicide. He has 500k followers on Instagram and twitter. He is going to be posting the link to the live stream any minute now.", I called out to the coders and engineers.

"Richard, Kim Kardashian just posted the link to our live steam on her Instagram account.", Jared said as he came running.

"Kim Kardashian has 150 million followers on Instagram alone!", one of the coders said in shock.

"Oh, Fuck. Oh, Fuck we got to scale up if we are going to handle that kind of traffic.", Gilfoyle said running to the server room with 3 other engineers running behind him.

"I am going to compress the manifest," Dinesh called out loudly and started assigning jobs to everyone.

I ran towards my workstation grabbed a chair and sat down, "I will kill the highest bit rate to give us more headroom.", I called out from my station. As per my previous stress test of the servers, they could handle traffic of 10 to 20 million quiet easily without breaking a sweat. Today would be its real test, to see how much could it actually handle.

"Guys, the traffic just crossed 500k.", one of the coders called out.

"Keep working guys, we need to stay 10 steps ahead if we want to keep up with the traffic.", I said loudly enough that everyone in the open workspace could hear me.

I heard quite a few 'Yes boss' following that.

I might have been working for a couple of hours when I felt a hand on my shoulder shake me from my concentration. Looking up I saw it was Pete. "Richard, we need to go. Its time.", he told me with a gentle smile.

"Oh, Okay. Guys I am leaving. Erlich, take over my station. Guys we just crossed 4 million viewers. Do not let that feed fail! Best of luck!", I said handing over my station to Erlich who came running, leaving his own station to another coder. "All the best, boss man. Go kick Gavin Belson in the balls.", he said already focused on taking over my task.

"Don't worry I will guys. I will.", I said leaving my office with Pete.

XxxxX

"Oh hey, Richard!", Gavin Belson came out of the Jon and washed his hands as he greeted me. Unlike the cannon, his tone wasn't causal and tension free. As this time around, Richard, that is me, hadn't shot himself and his company in their foot by accepting having used Hooli equipment while working on Pied Piper.

So this time, his voice instead of being pleasant, was tense. Very tense.

"Oh, hey Gavin.", I said casually as I adjusted my tie and the cuffs of my very expensive suit.

"So I heard your bird stream is going viral. How does it feel to profit off of a dying man?", he asked trying to provoke.

"I wouldn't know. As that statement like this suit is completely baseless. First, the man isn't dying. He might be paralyzed from the waist down but he isn't dying. Second, our live feed might just be critical in helping the EMT's locate him. Last but not the least, we had set up that feed for free. So we aren't making any money off of it.", I said turning to him with a small smile.

"Yeah right, As if you are not going to profit from the publicity of the capacity and the quality of your live stream." He scoffed. I just shrugged. Being careful not to say anything incriminating just in case he was recording us.

"Look, Richard, what are we doing here? Why are we fighting? Who says we have to be enemies?", he said changing his tone.

"I don't think you are my enemy Gavin. In fact, I have nothing but respect for you. You have been trying since day one to protect your company by trying to throw as many obstacles in my way. Trying to make me give up on Pied Piper. Because you know, Pied Piper is a sleeping giant. A giant that will take a little time to get up but once it does, well you will be fucked. And I guess this was your hail mary. And don't feel bad, it still might work. Your chances are not quite that good, but the world is standing on hope." I said tapping his shoulder twice and then turned around to move out of the bathroom.

I knew he was pissed but still, he managed to control his anger and call out. "Richard wait! What if I offer you 150 million dollars for your company before we go in there. We can settle it here, outside of that room, businessman to businessman.", he said extending his hand.

I gave a convincing fake shocked expression on my face as I look at him and then at his hand. "You have got to be shitting me.", I told him with a bewildered expression.

"No Richard I am not. 150 million dollars will all be yours. It's a lot of money. How many people can say that they retired before they are 30 with 150 mil in the bank? What do you say?", he said extending the hand again.

"No Gavin. I mean you are shitting me with a low ball offer like that Gavin. I expected better from you.", I told him as I started turning to move out. But was stopped with a counter offer.

"200 million Richard. How about that?"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"Fine. 225."

"…"

"250"

"…"

"300. Come on Richard that is more than fair."

"…"

"Fucking fine. 500 million. I don't even have board authorization for it but I will be able to swing it if you say YES right now!"

"…"

"Come on say something dammit.", he said banging his hand on the tile of the sink.

"You are desperate. Good.", I said as I turned around and left the men's room. I could hear a loud "FUCK." Though the door as I saw his other lawyers rush in.

Oh, I have got him right where I want him now. I thought with a smirk.

XxxxX

"Which is why I had no recourse but to rule that, since it has not been proven that Mr. Hendricks, used Hooli equipment to facilitate the development of Pied Piper, then pursuant to California Labor Code, Hooli has no right to ownership of Pied Piper's underlying IP.", The judge said and I banged the table in cheer.

"Congrats." "Congratulations." "Very well done.""Congratulations." Pete and I congratulated each other with a firm handshake and a hug. The story at Hooli table was no happy though.

"Mr. Belson, I'm sorry. I really am.", the lady counselor from Hooli tried to tell a Gavin Belson that was in shock. "The FUCK JUST HAPPENED? DID WE JUST LOOSE? HOW THE FUCK DID WE JUST LOOSE?", Gavin started ranting very loudly at his legal team.

"Mr. Belson, you will control yourself or I will have you in contempt. I still haven't finished reading my judgment so sit your ass back down.", The judged scolded Belson like a little child, which of course worked as he immediately though begrudgingly shut up and sat down.

"As I was saying, Now, Pied Piper, you conceded on all of these minor counts.

Accordingly, on the count of wrongful solicitation, I find Richard Hendricks did indeed breach his contract with Hooli when he hired away an Hooli employee, one Donald Dunn, AKA Jared, AKA O. J., apparently.

But this is where things get interesting. Mr. Belson, there is language in this contract that the California Supreme Court has deemed unlawful.

Preventing Mr. Dunn from seeking employment elsewhere is a violation of his rights. Are you aware of this?", the judge asked removing his reading glasses and glaring at a defeated Gavin Belson that just wanted to leave this place as soon as possible.

"I was not, but I'm willing to drop that count altogether if it makes things easier.", Gavin said trying to finish this now miscalculated endeavor as quickly as possible so that he could leave.

"Well, here's the thing. This clause was unlawful when you included it in Mr. Hendricks' employment agreement.", The judge put his reading glasses back on and started reciting from this written judgment.

"Right. As I said, I'm willing to just move past this.", Gavin again interrupted to get the judge to finish as quickly as possible.

"See, again, I don't think you understand. If Mr. Hendricks hadn't hired Mr. Dunn, or you hadn't pursued him for that hire or Mr. Hendricks hadn't passed on a message through his lawyer for me to take a closer look at the employment contract at hooli, I'm not sure I would've noticed the violation.", as the judge said that Gavin turned his glare at me wondering what game was I now playing. I just gave him a smirk and mimed a slitting throat motion with my index finger to him.

"But you did, so I did.", the Judge continued.

"What's happening?", Gavin turned to his counsel in a slight panic to ask what the fuck was going on.

An exaggerated and extended "Fuccckkkk." Was the counselors reply.

"And what I find is, this is an unenforceable contract. It is null and void. So, effectively, Mr. Hendricks never had a valid employment agreement with Hooli. As a result, Hooli has twice over, no claim to ownership of Pied Piper's underlying IP. That is my ruling and per your arbitration agreement, it is binding and final.", the judge said banging the gavel and getting up, giving a vindictive smirk to, according to him, a billionaire asshole that was trying to squish an honest little guy under his boots.

"What the fuck just happened? Did we lose again? You gotta be fucking kidding me! How bad is it?", As I got up and straightened my jacket and tied the button near my abdomen, I gave Gavin a look. A look that said. 'I won. Now you are fucked.'

"See you later Gavin. Have a nice day.", I told Gavin with a smirk and walked out of the room with my lawyer. I could hear him scream obscenities at his legal team from two doors down. Then I opened my phone to check my messages. The last message was from Monica – "Every VC in town wants a meeting! 35 million views at its peak with loss less 4k UHD picture before the rescue team cut off the feed. The valley is going nuts! Call me!"

Fucking brilliant! I thought with a smirk. I pressed the reply button and wrote – "Good. Oh.. and We Won.", I could almost imagine her screaming up and down in joy. I dare not think about what the noise level in the office would be after she told them the news.

I felt a hand on my shoulder stopping me. I looked back to see that it was Pete wanting to say something to me. He hesitated for a second before he seemed to gather his courage, "Richard, not long ago, emergency workers pulled me out of the flaming wreckage of my Mercury Grand Marquis."

"All right."

"Today, you pulled me out of the flaming wreckage of my life, and those flames burn far hotter.", he said with real emotion in his voice.

"Sure.", I said a little uncomfortable at the raw emotion in the man's voice.

"For that, I thank you.", he said with so much conviction that I had to look away for a second.

I guess I could understand where he was coming from. His life was a burning garbage heap before I had Ron call him from nowhere and give him a chance when I had no need to. I had the money to afford a real lawyer rather than a disbarred one.

"You welcome Pete. I believe in second chances. But we still have a lot of work to do. Now I know you thought this was a temporary thing. But if you want a job, I will give you one. After you go to rehab and get officially signed off by the doctors and are able to get re-barred or whatever the term is and can practice law again. And don't worry about the cost of both those things. That's on me, think of it as your retainer fee, okay?", I told him putting my hand on his shoulder.

"Uhhh…umm… Tha…Thank you, Richard. I really appreciate it." He said averting his eyes from me. Probably trying to hide his emotions.

"Look I know you want to celebrate, but I don't think being near alcohol is such a good idea for you right now. So how about we go to Ron first, I need to have a short meeting with him. Then we go to your house or hotel or where ever you are staying and pack up some clothes and I drop you off at the rehab I had booked for you a few days ago.?", I told him, surprising him.

"You have already booked me into a rehab? Even before we won the case?", he asked shocked?

"Well yeah. Win or lose, I thought you were a good man that deserved a second chance. So I made sure to make the bookings before the trial started. I didn't want you to go on a victory or loss induced bender and then do something you will regret. You are trying so hard to get your life back on track." I told him without looking at him as we reached the car and I unlocked it with the remote.

"Richard. I don't know what to say. Richard the only thing I can do is thank you from the bottom of my heart and promise you that I will spend rest of my life trying to repay the kindness you have showed me when you had no reason to do so.", he replied this time with his eyes red and dripping with tears.

I just gave his shoulder another squeeze and got into the car. I just got myself another forever loyal employee if not a future loyal friend. Time to go meet Ron.

XxxxX

**AN: Hope you liked the chapter. If you did, please favorite, follow, like and review. Your reviews fuel my motivation to keep on writing.**


	15. Chapter 14

Disclaimer - I do not own Silicon Valley.

AN - Hey guys, here is a chapter for you. And as news for you guys I have been working on the sequel to Rise of Richard Hendricks. Its Called Rise of Jon Stark Targaryen, which is a HP/GOT crossover. I have already written over 90k and 14 chapters. But before I start to publish it, I need a beta.

So if you are interested just pm me.

CHAPTER 14 - The AFTERMATH

ERLICH BACHMAN

"Chug"

"Chug"

"Chug"

"Chug"

"Chug"

People were cheering as the CEO of Pied Piper was chugging beer directly from the barrel.

The atmosphere at Pied Piper office could be described in three words. Bat. Shit. Insane!

Everyone was either drinking or dancing or kissing or drinking and dancing and kissing. It was as if the whole company was in euphoria. And it was. The reason being, not only had Piper Successfully demonstrated lossless 4kUHD streaming capability that could handle tens of millions of users at a time, without lag, but had also beaten the law-suit hanging over Pied Pipers head by Gavin Belson. And for everyone, the man of the hour was one Richard Hendricks.

Erlich had never thought he would grow to respect any man as much as he did Richard Hendricks right now. He couldn't almost believe the transformation of the man in front of him from the nervous, twitchy, underweight and insecure kid that had come to his doorstep looking for a free room and in exchange offering 10% stake in a shitty music recognition software. And god he thanked himself for being high enough that day for saying yes not because the app was good but because he was high and emotional and took pity on the boy. And boy did it pay off.

"Who's the man?", I yelled loudly.

"Richard!"

"Who is the man that kicked Gavin Belsons Dick?", I yelled again.

"Richard!"

"Who has the balls made of stone?", I yelled again.

"Richard!"

"Who's going to make us the best company in the word?"

"Richard!"

"Who is going to make us the richest company in the world?"

"Richard!" everyone yelled again cheering on an obviously embarrassed Richard. But like all problems and negativity, he shrugged it off as well. Then he started making hand gestures for everyone to quiet down.

"You know, right now we are flying high. We are in our new offices. And if all goes well, will shift to a bigger and better one soon. But it didn't start here. The journey to get here was a long one. We have successfully crushed all obstacles that have been thrown in front of us. And now that the lawsuit is done and we have proven the capability of our compression algorithm, there is no other direction to go but up. But as we move forward, I would like to acknowledge the contribution made by some of my close friends and colleagues to bring this company where it is today and who are going to be an integral part of where the company is going.

First I would like to call attention to our coder extraordinaire, Dinesh! Dinesh has been a part of the team from the start and is an integral part of the platform we are building. He might be a whimpy man with a Gilfoyle complex but he is a good coder and a good friend.

Then there is the systems security expert and the best mother fucking systems engineer I have seen in my life. Bertram Gilfoyle, our resident Satanist. When Gavin Belson cocked blocked us from being able to lease any web hosting services we thought for a second we were dead in the water. But then this mother fucker said, fuck Belson, let's stand up our own servers, and he ends up creating Anton. The mother fucking king of servers. The Live feed would not have been possible without his servers. So all hail Gilfoyle, the bastard love child of Satan. Mother Fuck I am drunk.

Then, I would like to talk about Monica. Monica Hall, get up here. This woman is my girlfriend and the reason Pied Piper even exist today. You know Belson offered me 10 million to sell him the song recognition software as well as the in-built algorithm that was the initial Pied Piper. Then this woman convinces her boss to back me, he did by offering me… 200k.

I know, you will think it's funny, and so did I initially. After Belson and Gregory went into a bidding war over Pied Piper, I had started hyperventilating. When that happened, I ran out of the building, as the panic attacks set in. I was puking in the bushes outside Hooli before I knew what was happening. This woman tracked me down in front of my doctor's office and basically dared me by calling me a pussy for thinking about selling to Gavin and walking away. So here we are. Thank you Mon, I know I don't say this enough, but you are the best thing that happened to me, and I love you. Also, I think I am really drunk.", He said belching and then to the amused disgust of his smoking hot girlfriend giving her a kiss on the cheek.

"Okay let me get through this before the room starts spinning any faster, Last but not the least is the man with woman hair, Erlich Bowman….no broman…fuck he is a man, I can say that for sure, maybe, you never know with the amount of cologne he uses. Get up here, Garlic!" He said butchering my name, giving me a come here gesture, already a little tipsy.

"Okay. Guys, let me tell you something about this man.

He is an utter and complete ass hole.", He said generating a round of laughs from everyone in the room. I wanted to frown, but I was buzzed as well and he wasn't inaccurate.

"But…But, he was also the first person to believe in me. Believe in Pied Piper. Though I think he was high as a kite at that time. Still, he did believe in me and gave me permission to stay in the incubator so that I could develop my app, rent-free.

Though he is sometimes self-destructive and obnoxious….He is also my mentor. He had helped me in the beginning by teaching me key principles of being a CEO and I am going to be forever grateful. He is also one hell of a salesman. The mother fucking best. He is also one of my best friends, despite being an asshole.", he declared in his drunken state. I think something just went in my eye. I better rub it and get it out. I am definitely not crying because I am emotional, drunk and high…. and that is the most respect anyone has ever shown me.

"The last but not least, Jared Dunn. I haven't known him for very long. But somehow this guy has not only managed to become the best business manager I know but is also an integral part of Pied Piper. He is also my best friend. So I am announcing this right now, and as soon as I am sober, I will make this official, please give a big round of applause for your new COO, Jared Dunn. Jared Jared Jared", he started chanting. It was picked up by other employees soon after.

I think after that Richard depleted all the energy he had left in his body as he promptly collapsed on a sofa and went to blissful alcohol-induced blackout. While the party around him continued.

Now I need a piss. As I walked into the bathroom and away from the noise of the party, I heard my phone ring and disconnect. As I took out my phone, I saw there were multiple miscalls from Laurie Bream.

Hmmm… wonder what she wants?

XxxxX

Laurie Bream

Richard Hendricks was a mistake and a problem.

Meeting Richard Hendricks for the first time had unnerved her. That person had the making of a very ruthless investor and future CEO. So even though she was unnerved by this person, he was the exact kind of person she needed as a potential investment opportunity. His tech obviously worked and he was sitting on a billion-dollar gold mine. So when he had twisted and blackmailed her into signing the board seat agreement, she had given in, as any perceived loss in the company outweighed by the potential opportunity for profits.

She was quite furious when she found out that Monica Hall was in a relationship with Richard Hendricks. She was counting on her to vote with her as the voice as Raviga. Now she realized that wouldn't happen as being in a sexual relationship with Hendricks would have surely destabilised her judgement. She contemplated, how badly had she been played. But in the end, it didn't matter, when she analysed the situation clinically and she always analysed the situation clinically. The company was going to work and Raviga was going to make a profit. That is what mattered in the end.

Then the news of the law-suit came.

Deciding to not fund Pied Piper at the time when it was named in a lawsuit against a multi-billion dollar company would have been common sense. Any sensible investor who read the situation would read risk like she did and withdraw. Just like she had.

But she could confess to herself that she was unnerved a bit when Richard sent a message through Monica as a reply to her backing out. "You just kicked a golden goose in the balls. You WILL Regret it.", she had scoffed when she had heard it. She thought it was overzealousness of youth. She had scoffed even more that he said sent the same threat to all the VC's in town. Antagonizing all the VC's in town is a death sentence for any startup.

She was sure that the story of Richard Hendricks and Pied Piper would soon end.

She had planned to acquire the company for peanuts when the company ran out of money. And she was confident that the company would run out of money long before the suit was settled. As suits like this took years and millions upon millions in litigation.

Then she found out through Monica, that Piped Piper was not going to run out of money any time soon. As Richard Hendricks had infused his own money into the company. The money that he had swindled out of Gavin Belson a few months back. That made her scoff again. She knew from the first meeting with Mr Richards that he considered himself a risk-taker. But infusing his whole nest egg into a company that might not even survive was beyond rash. She patted herself on the back about making that correct decision regarding Pied Piper and Richard Hendricks. Still, this gamble gave her a pause. At the back of her mind, a small voice started saying, 'What if?'. The moment she realized what was happening she squashed that voice like a bug.

During one of the routine updates, Monica told her that Richard was throwing money around in millions on stuff like offices and servers that weren't even needed. She again attributed it to the zealousness of youth.

Then she saw the billboard adverts that littered the highway and the biggest one with Pied Piper logo on it in direct sight of Gavin Belson's office at Hooli. Multiple Tech News blog's picked up the story.

She as well as the whole valley understood what kind of message Richard Hendricks was sending. He was challenging Gavin Belson. She and as far she knew all the other people in this town that mattered thought that this was the desperate last gasp of defiance of a dying company. She again shook her head at misguided zealousness of youth Richard Hendricks was displaying.

Then something happened she didn't predict. Gavin Belson actually blinked. He actually responded to the challenge with an answer of his own. The Nucleus UFC fight. And oh my, that was a disaster. And as soon as Nucleus failed, Pied Piper and Richard Hendricks jumped on the opportunity like a pair of jackals.

Within two weeks, Pied Piper had displayed their ability to transmit to live stream 4k UHD video, by cracking deals with Homocide and natural history museum. Though the live stream of homicide only had viewers of a few thousand, nowhere near hundreds of thousands that had logged onto nucleus for the UFC fight, they gave a proof of concept and a potential working product. Something that Nucleus had failed to do.

That is when she realized, that Richard Hendricks set a trap for Gavin Belson and he fell in it. After which Mr. Hendricks took full advantage of the situation. That is when the voice in the head came back. It came back saying that maybe…maybe she was wrong about Hendricks. But this time again she quashed that voice as she still felt, the situation hadn't changed much. All Hendricks had accomplished was to make sure he would run out of money even faster. As the law-suit and millions in money for years in litigation still stood on his head like a guillotine. There was still no possible way, Hendricks would win, was there?

Then the incident with InterSite happened.

She had been surprised to find out that there was another compression company on the market competing with Nucleus and Pied Piper. Its name was EndFrame. She was even more surprised to find out their software actually worked. Maybe not as good as Hendricks but still better than anything that existed in the market currently. When she found out that the company already had a platform ready and sales-based model, she had begun the proceedings to acquire equity by investing in the company. She had doubled her efforts when she realized that EndFrame had an almost already done deal with InterSite worth 15 million. She managed to acquire a 5% stake in the company for 5 million, just a few weeks before the deal with InterSite would close and be executed.

Then Richard Hendricks happened. Again.

He somehow managed to break into EndFrame's internal network and get all the details about EndFrame's deal with InterSite. He did so without leaving any trace of his presence in their system and any clue of how he did it. Because of this nothing could be proven in court and no legal action could be taken.

Then he went and somehow convinced InterSite's CEO to agree to an absurdly named Bake-off where both companies would compete with each other to find out whose software is better. At that moment I had realized the game was already lost for EndFrame, as Pied Piper was better in every conceivable way, only lacking in a completed platform and a sales team.

And it was proven true. The very next day, after the 'Bake-off' ended, InterSite backed off from the deal and signed a deal almost three times larger, worth 40 million dollars with Pied Piper. Then she found out that, that amount was just for one year and the contract was for five years. With a non-compete clause for leasing the technology to other porn websites ending in 18 months. Effectively making Pied Piper, a revenue-generating company of 40 million dollars a year for 5 years, with a chance of an exponential increase in 18 months. Not to mention they could expand right now to provide the same service to other websites that are not porn websites.

Right at that moment, every VC in the valley realized that if Pied Piper would be evaluated now, taking into account potential growth potential with just this business model alone, Pied Piper was worth billions. To their horror, they also realized that they had pissed off the company's CEO and he had sent them a very clear message when they had done so. The same message he had sent for her though Monica. "You just kicked a golden goose in the Balls. You, Will, Regret It."

She had approached Monica and asked her that if she were to fund Pied Piper now, would Richard be receptive. Monica had answered the very next second with a strong "NO". Acknowledging it she had left Monica's office. The voice in her head was getting louder. It was telling her she made a mistake. But she consoled herself that even with everything Richard Hendricks had been able to achieve, it might all go to Gavin Belson still. Though, now Richard did have enough money to make sure his company survived and enough capital to fight Gavin Belson legally on an equal footing with an equally large army of lawyers.

And just in case, Richard somehow won, he was going to cause problems in the future. To gain control over Richard Hendricks, she needed to gain control of Pied Piper. To gain control of Pied Piper, she needed to gain control of the board. And it would have to start with Monica. Her blind loyalty to Richard, just because they were sleeping together was going to be problematic.

She needed to be brought to heel and follow the company line.

Just as she was working on long term plans to bring Monica to heel, she found out from Monica that Richard Hendricks managed to get some leverage on Gavin Belson and using it, blackmailed Belson to agreeing with Binding Arbitration, which would resolve the law-suit in two days, one way or other.

She had for the first time in years, screamed in frustration at the entity that was Richard Hendricks.

Then she accelerated her plan with Monica. She told her that she need to tow the company line and vote with her on the board of Pied Piper or her life and career in this company would get really difficult.

She refused. And so I had no choice to carry out my threat until she would see reason. She was given the worst office possible, she was demoted, her pay was greatly reduced, workload greatly increased and she was sent a message that her career would hit a dead end here and she would make sure that no other VC in town would touch her if she didn't do what was asked of her.

She refused again. Blind loyalty was so troublesome.

Then as the day of the binding arbitration neared; From the office gossip and Monica's raving she found out that instead of a highly professional and expensive legal team to beat back Gavin's own highly professional and expensive legal team, Richard Hendricks had hired an x-sex-offender that wasn't even a lawyer any longer, having been disbarred from practising law in the state of California.

This had all the makings of another one of Richard Hendricks games. She just couldn't see what he had planned.

Then as with everything with Hendricks, another thing happened on the day of the trial that shocked her and all the VC's in the valley. One of the three live streams Piped Piper had established to show proof of concept began trending. She found out it was because of an accidental mishap while taking down the camera's a worker had fallen off a cliff on a live stream. He had survived on a live stream. He was now trapped and injured with no way for help to reach anytime soon to him… on a live stream.

Due to the entertainment value of his struggle for survival, the video stream had gone viral. She soon found out, Richards had again pounced on this opportunity like prey and was calling social media influencers and offering to pay them a substantial amount for posting a link to the video on their social media account. An excellent strategy, she had to accept begrudgingly. But that wasn't the shocking part, because by now she and most VC in town knew that though Richards might be young, he was still an excellent CEO with an extremely cunning and opportunistic mind. No, the thing that shocked her and all the VC 's in town was the number of viewers that kept on increasing without any effect on the picture quality or interruption in the stream. She could say without embarrassment that she along with many other VC's in town might have almost collectively shat their pants when the online viewer numbers surpassed 10 million. She was catatonic when the number kept surpassing first 20 million and then 30 million, without any signs of slowing down. When the rescuers shut down the feed at 37 million viewers she and she guessed all the other VC's in town were beyond speechless.

If she had possessed a firearm at that time she would have surely shot herself. Then even worse news came, according to her, that Richards had won the suit.

During this, all she could think off was, how could she have been so wrong about a company? About a person? About Richard Hendricks!

Then she started making calls and she found out, as she predicted, everyone wanted a piece of Pied Piper. But any requests for a meeting by other firms were met with one reply on their Email account – "Richard Hendricks Remembers."

This did give all the VC's pause, but by no means stopped them. They just ignored the message and kept on sending requests for meetings and bigger and bigger offers. But she had a hunch that Richard Hendricks was going to ignore all of them and their offers for Series A funding. Including hers, if she offered.

To this she saw only one solution, Richard Hendricks had to go. Yes, he was an excellent CEO. With brilliant tech and even more brilliant mind. But he was also extremely stubborn. And no amount of luck or brilliance would save a company if the CEO is that prideful and stubborn. Sooner or later, he would make a mistake that would lead to the collapse of the company. Like right now, spiting and refusing all VC's in town just because they rejected him once.

No Richard Hendricks had to go. Once he was gone, Raviga could fund the Series A for Pied Piper and get a better foothold in the company and steer it to success it could be.

She had Monica called in her office, which she came to just as she was leaving to prepare for the party at Pied Piper. Then she decided to give another forceful try to bring Monica under the heel, as replacing Richard Hendricks as CEO with someone more malleable was very important. This time after applying enough pressure and giving ridiculously huge incentives, which included making her a full partner from an associate partner, she finally caved and did the sensible thing agreeing with her.

Then she left to go back home instead of going to the party. After getting Monica on her side, she decided to crack another weak link in Pied Piper. She called Erlich Bachman. The problem was the first few times she called he did not answer. When he finally did, she offered him a ridiculous amount of money to sell her his shares in Pied Piper as well as the board seat along with it. She had to accept that he was an adept negotiator and she agreed on paying him 25 million dollars for his shares. His only condition was that he wanted the vote to oust Richard, to be tomorrow. His reasoning according to her steamed from the jealously he had towards Richard Hendricks and his rising star. And he wanted to have the pleasure to be in and vote in the board meeting that kicked Richard out. He was not going to sign any paperwork, until according to him, "I personally bring the mighty fucker down a peg or thousand."

She agreed. If she was getting what she wanted in exchange for letting a little vindictive revenge being taken out on Richard Hendricks, she wasn't going to stop it. She smiled as she thought how perfectly she had set the board.

XxxxX

"Let's call this meeting of the board to order.", I said adjusting my glasses and opening my file folder and looking at today's agenda. Then I looked around at the people gathered. Richard Hendricks, Jared Dunn, Monica Hall and Erlich Bachman. If came down to the wire, those last two were her trump cards.

"First let me congratulate you on the successfully beating the law-suit against you by Gavin Belson and for your live stream going viral and achieving 37 million viewers at the same time.", I said almost looking at Richard Hendricks from the corner of her eye.

"Thank you, Laurie, that was very nice of you.", he replied smiling.

"Yes. That. Now let's move on to today's agenda for the meeting. As you have shown yourself and your company having great potential, Raviga is prepared to fund the company with 50 million dollars for a 500 million dollar evaluation for your Series A. Also we are prepared to negotiate.", I said removing my glasses and looked at Richard

Hendricks from the corner of my eye.

Richard Henricks smile turned a bit cold at that.

"I am sorry Laurie, but at present, we neither in need or are accepting any kind of funding.", Jared Dunn spoke what was written all over Richard Hendricks face. "Also I have been instructed by my CEO to say this to any VC that had backed out of their term sheet agreements last time and now wants to fund us – Richard Hendricks Remembers.", Jared Dunn said though it seemed he did it reluctantly.

"Is that so Mr Hendricks? Is there no way I can get you to change your mind? It was just business after all.", I asked him, this time directly looking into his eyes. His face became neutral and eyes became colder when I did that.

"I am sorry Laurie. I don't think you can. And this is just business as well.", Richard said shaking his head with a sigh.

"Very well then. You leave me no choice. You might be a smart CEO Mr Hendricks, but with an attitude like that, you won't survive long in this valley. I vote to remove Richard Hendricks as CEO of Pied Piper.", I said starting the motion.

"Are you crazy? No! Not just no but fuck NO!", Jared Dunn said as his shock turned into anger.

"I kind of have to agree with my friend Jared here. I like being the CEO and I like keeping and running my company. So no from me as well.", Richard Hendricks said with a still neutral face while putting one hand of Jared Dunn's arm to keep him from overreacting any more.

"Understandable and expected. But I don't think Miss Hall and Mr Bachman would agree with that.", I said struggling to bring a smile to my face as I said so. Why are emotions and facial expressions so complicated?

Then I looked at Mr Bachman expecting him to give a speech or throw foul words towards Richard Hendricks before he voted to have him removed.

"Richard you are an arrogant asshole. You enjoy seeing me in pain and making fun of me. You have insulted me so many times since you became CEO that I have lost count. And if had a dollar for every time I wanted to kick your ass up and down the road in the last year, I would already be a millionaire.

But…

But I guess that is what friends do. And you are also my best friend. So I say, FUCK YOU LAURIE. And as my Hairy Friend, Gilfoyle would say, YOU CAN CHORTLE MY BALLS. And also RICHARD STAYS.", he bellowed shocking her. Then her shock turned to anger.

"We had a deal Mr Bachman!", she said furiously.

"Oh I know, and Richard here was standing right next to me in the jon when we were making that deal. I think we may have started some unwarranted rumours when we both came out of the same stall.", Erlich Bachman said looking confused.

This…This was a disaster. She was played. No, she was played again. She was played again by Richard Hendricks.

"For what it's worth, I vote NO. Richard stays as a CEO.", Monica said. And I truly couldn't blame her for changing her side the moment she realized the motion was defeated and Richards will stay on as CEO. It was only logical.

"I understand Miss Hall.", I said sighing.

"No I don't think you do. You are thinking she changed sides because she saw that the motion was already defeated and her vote was irrelevant. Are you really this stupid?

Did you really think she wouldn't tell me what you have been putting her through the past few weeks just to get her to vote with you in the board meetings? Did you really think MY GIRLFRIEND wouldn't tell me the moment she found me about the deal you had made yesterday? My god Laurie, you might have a good when it comes to numbers but you are retarded when it comes to understanding people. The moment she told me what you had planned I knew your next target would be Erlich. So we decided to play a little game. And here we are.", Richard Hendricks said with an insufferable smirk.

"Motion defeated.", Monica declared with a resigned look on her face. "What's next on the agenda?", Monica continued. It sounded rehearsed.

"I have an agenda. I would like to start the motion to remove Laurie Bream from this board for incompetence and greed motivated attempt to oust our current reigning CEO, Richard Hendricks. All in favour say AYE.", Erlich stated with a smirk. Except for Jared, no one said AYE. But both Monica and Richard slowly and articulately raised their hands, driving finals in her coffin.

"Motion Passed.

Laurie, please leave the room. Your presence is no longer required.", Richard Hendricks said with a seemingly innocuous smile that made me want to strangle him.

I got up with as much dignity as I could manage and moved to the door. Even though internally I was seething.

"Ohh Laurie,", he called as I was about to exit the door. He came close to me and whispered in my ear, "Next time, think twice before trying to fuck with me. Cunt." He said moving back to my widening eyes.

"You dare?!", I started raging.

"What do I dare Laurie. I was just saying goodbye and that we will miss you. Did you hear something different? Because I think the rest of the people in this room would say otherwise.", he said with a self-satisfied smirk of having achieved a complete victory.

The door banged as I left the room storming. With one thought running through my mind.

"This is not over Richard Hendricks."

XxxxX

AN - So Thoughts? Reviews are my fuel.

~Till the Next Time


	16. Chapter 15

Disclaimer - I do not own Silicon Valley.

AN - Two chapters within a week!? Enjoy guys, and don't forget to check out my new story, **Jon Stark Targaryen.**

_**Chapter 15 - Hokey Poaching**_

**Richard Hendricks**

"So guys, we had the party a couple of days ago. We had our fun. Now we have to get back to work.", I told the core team as I called the meeting to order. Present were, Jared, Erlich, Gilfoyle, Dinesh, Monica and as per my special request Ron LaFlamme.

"Ron, thanks for coming here on such short notice.", I told acknowledging Ron's presence.

"Anything for you Richie. You are my boy.", he said kicking his feet on the table. I liked this guy. He had swag.

"Appreciate that.", I said nodding and then getting back into the groove of the meeting.

"Now I have called this meeting because we need to discuss the direction this company is going to take as we are now free of all legal bullshit and are flushed with funds.", I told looking at all the people of the conference room then turned to Jared.

"Mr COO, can you tell us, how much of the Intersite money do we have left in the bank?"

Jared almost stood to attention then visibly controlled himself before he answered. "Well, after the cost of the new office you want me to look for, giving out the extremely generous bonuses, server costs and the cost of the new servers you have ordered constructed, taxes, other major and minor costs, we have 30 million dollars of runway left.", Jared told me from looking at his laptop.

I didn't say anything but just nodded.

"Richard do you really need new offices right now? You just shifted to this one a few months ago. And those offices you are looking for are not going to be cheap?", Monica said trying to be the voice of reason.

"Yes Richard, I like this office, there is a women's gym right upstairs. And you can't tell me you don't love it. I know you know, how many of those girls have been trying to catch your eye in the elevator, lobby and car park, ever since they came to know you are the CEO of a potential billion-dollar company."

As soon as Dinesh said it, he regretted it as he realized he had forgotten for a second Monica was in the room and my girlfriend.

"You know what, I think I changed my mind. Let's move to the new offices. I think we should move as soon as possible.", Monica said biting back her anger. I just snorted at that. So did Gilfolye and Ron. Dinesh and Jared just gave nervous gulps.

I knew before I even looked at her that she was pissed. And that she hated that she could get so easily pissed at the thought of some other girl trying to get her moves on me. But goddammit, she looked so cute and sexy when she was jealous.

"Monica you have nothing to worry about. Richard is like a parrot. Like a parrot, he can only have one partner and that is you. He has never expressed any interest in those girls, that have been trying to grind against him in the elevator to get his attention. He has even been asking me to run interference with them from time to time so he could escape.", Jared said, simultaneously making the situation both better and worse.

"Jared. Please stop helping buddy.", I said shaking my head and pinching the binge on my nose. I could almost hear Monica grinding her teeth to control herself from not blowing up in front of others.

"I see it but I still don't believe it, that we live in a time where Richard Hendricks is considered a catch. End times have truly come.", Gilfoyle said his two bits. That just motivated Erlich to start a sexist or racist comment, but before he could, I stopped him.

"Erlich don't start. As interesting my love life is, let's talk about work, shall we? Jared how goes the search for the new office?", I asked him ignoring the sniggering of the boys and the repressed anger of my pissed off hot girlfriend.

"I have narrowed down the choices to 6. We can go have a look when you are ready.", Jared said again looking into his computer.

"Fine, we will all go take a look at those after work today and tomorrow.", I said closing the topic.

"Right, Ron how are the three different patents for middle-out I submitted coming along?", I asked my corporate attorney.

"Very good. Two are done deal, one is taking a bit of time but we should have it by the end of the month.", He replied.

"Wait, three patents!?", Dinesh asked in shock.

"Yeah, I figured out a couple of different ways someone could do middle out and decided to patent all of them so no one else could use it. I also took out a general patent so that even if I missed something we will have something to fight in court with. The only problem is whatever legal papers and patent they filed, exclude the EndFrame guys from it and they can still use whatever tech they have till we can prove they are infringing upon our patent.", I told the guys surprising them a little.

"Ron, I called you here for many reasons today. Let me tell you the biggest one of them all. I want to sue Gavin Belson and Hooli for 2 billion dollars.", I told him shocking the rest of the guys and Dinesh almost choking on water, but Ron just nodded as if he had expected it.

"Will be donezo. With the Binding Arbitration ruling in our favour, their problem with employment contracts and the fact that they based the whole nucleus division on the tech they stole from you? Yes, we have good ground for suing them. Can't say which way it will go but it is likely they will want to settle. Do you have a figure in mind, you would be comfortable settling on?", he asked me as cool as cucumber.

"One point five should do nicely.", I said to immediately hear Dinesh asphyxiating on the water again.

"Another Thing Ron, the guy from the live stream, that fell from the cliff, see if we can legally cover our asses while we offer to pay for his medical bills.", as I said that it got everyone's attention. Especially Jared. Being the most gentle-hearted amongst us, what happened to the live stream guy and how we profited it, affected him the most.

"Even if what happened to him was really unfortunate, it was really fortunate for us. I feel like we should do something for him. Medical bills are the way I am thinking of going about it, but I am open to further ideas. Just make sure that when we pay for his medical bills, he isn't able to use it as an admission of guilt from our part, you know, for 'trying to profit from his misfortune' or some bullshit like that. So cover the legal bases or whatever is necessary, yeah?", I completed looking at Ron, to the beaming smile of Jared and Monica and the indifference of everyone else. Though I think I did see a little disgust on Gifoyle's face. God, half the people in this room were terrible human beings.

"Richard, That's a wonderful idea! You really are a good person Richard. I am proud to be working for you.", Jared chimed in with a being smile.

"Oh, why don't you just go and suck his cock. At least you will stop making doe eyes at him.", Gilfoyle snarked from the corner. He was thoroughly ignored by everyone.

"Richard, that a very good idea, and a good PR opportunity.", Monica said also with a beaming smile.

"Hmm, how about you and Jared take a lead on that, and keep Erlic in the loop.", I said looking at the three people in question.

"Right to the next order of business. Today Gavin is going to give a statement to his employees and the press after the Law-suit fuck up. I bet either the board have ousted him or he has found scapegoats to hold onto the CEO seat in exchanging for sacrificing them.", I told the rest of the team.

"If I were a betting man and I am, I would say that he is going to throw the whole Nucleus division under the bus as our patent doesn't legally allow them to work on nucleus anymore.", Ron told me.

"Good then, whoever he fires and the moment he fires them, I want them poached. If possible I want to poach the whole Nucleus division from hooli. Jared, I want you to work with Ron on this and get it done.", I told them getting affirmative nods at my marching orders.

"Right, Gilfoyle how long are we till we can Beta the Pied Piper platform.", I asked my hairy spectacled friend.

"Considering we have been working on this for over a year, more or less without interruption, I think we can beta this in two months.", Gilfoyle replied in his bored monotone voice.

"Good. Then we are on schedule. But now I need you to distribute workload regarding the platform between Dinesh and other coders.", I announced and got a questioning raised eyebrow in return from Gilfoyle.

"Right, As the CEO, I have made a few decisions regarding the products of this company. Let me get straight to the point.", I said taking a pause and looking at the anticipating expression on everyone's face.

"The deal with InterSite and LiveStream gave us all a clear idea of what our compression algorithm is capable of. Jared's, Monica's and my phone have been ringing off the hook with people from different web-sites and streaming companies wanting peace of it.

This compression algorithm has numerous applications. Right now even as we fight to finish our platform, it will no longer be our priority. For the next few months, we are going to be concentrating on making deals with video streaming companies that could inject immediate cash flow into our company. To that end, I need you, Monica.", I said startling her.

"Me? What? No. NO! NO.", she said shaking her head with increasing frequency. "I work in a VC Richard.", she started saying but I stopped her mid refusal. "Look Monica we both know how miserable you have been over there since Peter died, especially with Laurie. And even if you quit, you get to keep the board seat for the next 4 years and Raviga can't do jack shit. And Monica, I need you. I need someone with a head for business like Jared and also someone with connections and charm to navigate deals, like you. Come on Monica, I need you." I told her making my best convincing/ puppy dog face. She looked reluctant and yet a lot tempted to accept. I decided to drive the final nail in the coffin. "Think of it this way Monica, if you are working here with me, you can stop any more models or gymnasts from grinding up against me in the elevator.", I told her with a smirk. That got her pissed again as she narrowed her eyes at me, but she knew I was just teasing her so it soon subsided. "Fine. But I want stock and a raise.", she said. "I think that can be arranged. How does the Head of Business development sound?" I asked her.

"Good. Very good.", She nodded with a smile.

"Excellent. Ron can you please draw up the paperwork for it.", I said looking at him, which he acknowledged with a nod and a small smile.

"Right, so if we are pivoting to streaming services then we will need more servers. Hence the new huge offices where we can establish a server farm in the basement. Gilgoyle I am going to need you to head that. I am assigning 10 million for the project. You have two months to improve on the design of Anton, Use any many coders and engineers you want. After two months I need you to start constructing them.", I told Gilfoyle, who with a big smile on his face was already in thinking mode about how he was going to improve Anton, with that huge a budget. This would probably mark the conception of the idea of Son of Anton.

"Right. Now, Jared, you, me and Dinesh will leave for India next Monday.", I told Dinesh and Jared bring them out of their own thoughts.

"I don't think I am allowed in that country.", Dinesh said jokingly.

"Just don't bring up Kashmir and you will be fine.", I repeated jokingly as well.

"Why are we going to India, Richard? Not that I mind, I always wanted to go to India, I heard it's a beautiful country.", Jared told me with a faraway look in his eyes imaging India.

"No, it isn't. If it's anything like Pakistan, and I know it is, it's Hot, Humid, Loud, Has way too many people and way too spicy food. Do I have to come?", Dinesh whined again.

"Well it might be all of that, but it is also home to BigStar and Indian Cricket League. BigStar is a web-based site as well as an app, that is a Netflix like Indian streaming service, with all Indian TV shows and movies. Is has a current subscriber base of millions and a potential subscriber base of hundreds of millions. It is also their only online sports live streaming app which live streams various sports played in India and abroad including Indian Cricket League. It just launched last year and is facing major problems regarding streaming picture quality. Especially during live streams. They lost a lot of money last year due to the glitchy, blocky and repeatedly interrupted stream of their Cricket League season that is on for two months.

If we can crack our deal with them, we will not only gain potential tens of millions in yearly fees but also pose a threat to Netflix and Amazon who have either just launched or planning to launch in India. After all, they wouldn't want any of their competitors in the Indian market to have an advantage over them. So once…", I was saying but my sentence was completed by Monica as she caught where I was going with this.

"So once we have cracked a deal with BigStar to compress their libraries and jack up their streaming, Netflix and Amazon will come knocking on our doors as well. Ready to offer whatever we want to not be at a disadvantage. And as Netflix and Amazon have streaming around the world and not just in India we will be able to get them to pay ten times what we can get BigStar to pay. Richard that is brilliant!", she said gushing. I think as much as she likes the nice and gentle guy in me, my deviousness is as big a turn on for her as my dominating bedroom personality. Huh! You learn something new every day.

"As fun as it is to see Monica cream her pants. What is my role going to be Richard?", Erlich asked amidst a "Fuck You Erlich!" from Monica. "You are going to be the new head of our media relations and marketing. Just please don't do something bold without approval, or I will have to fire you to legally cover my ass. Also, you will have a strict budget, that will be approved by Monica. We both know you are not good at handling money. ", I told him to his shock, happiness and then shock again. "Wait, seriously? You are making me the head of media relations? S…..", he was interrupted by Monica this time, "Yes let's continue before you cream your pants Erlich and we all have to clear the room because of the smell.", Monica said mockingly.

"Did you have to have sex with this white witch Richard?", Erlich asked half groaning half-joking. "What can I say, she bewitched me.", I said shrugging with a grin, as I got back on topic. Making Monica's frown at Erlich turn upside down at my comment.

"Now that we have discussed our plan, Jared, Dinesh and I will head to India to get started on the deal and give them a demo, after Ron makes sure all the paperwork is signed protecting us and our tech legally.", I nodded looking at Ron, which he mirrored and gave me a thumbs up.

"Demo?", Glifoyle inquired.

"They have an India Vs Pakistan cricket series coming up they want to test our tech on for live streaming. It's a 5 match series. We will do the first match for free. If everything goes smoothly, they will pay us for the remaining matches. If they don't like it or we do not meet their technical requirements, then we pack up and leave. Simple.", I told everyone shrugging.

Just when we were about to continue our meeting, everyone's phone pinged.

"Richard you have got to see this.", Jared said looking at something on his phone and then opening something on his laptop. It was a Hooli news alert.

Gavin Belson just issued a press statement. All of us gathered around Jared's Laptop to see it.

_Thank you all for coming on such short notice._

_I have a difficult announcement to make._

_We, in the tech business, often refer to failure as a good thing._

_Failure is growth._

_Failure is learning._

_But sometimes failure is just failure._

_I think I'm sorry._

_I didn't think it would be this hard._

_But goodbyes are always hard, especially when I am the one saying goodbye._

_Today, effective immediately, I, Gavin Belson, founder and CEO of Hooli, am forced to officially say goodbye to the entire Nucleus division._

_All Nucleus personnel will be given proper notice and terminated._

_But make no mistake._

_Though they're the ones leaving, it is I who must remain and bear the heavy burden of their failure._

_It is my fault._

_I trusted them to get the job done._

_But that is the price of leadership._

_Thank you._

"Holi shit! He just fired the whole division!", Dinesh Exclaimed.

"Not just that. He pushed the blame of everything that happened on the Nucleus Team and came out smelling like roses. If I had to wager I would say, Hooli and Belson are going to see a jump in the stock because of the stunt they pulled.", Ron concluded.

"Ron's right. People will laud him for making a hard decision. For trimming the fat… Or I should say surgically removing a tumor in Hooli.", Monica explained with a grave face.

"That guy is a giant asshole. Too bad, because of this stunt, no one will hire those engineers in the valley.", Gilfoyle said shrugging.

"Guys this is an opportunity like I said before.", I said gaining everyone's attention.

"Yes, as I said before, Jared, Ron, Monica, I want to poach the whole nucleus division. But I want to do it in such a way that Belson can't stop me. Because if he even gets a whiff that I want those Engineers, he will keep them on without them doing any work, just to spite me.

So, guys, can you make that happen?", I asked the three people I had tasked with this job.

Jared the ever-cautious one, was the first to speak. "Richard, are you sure? There are like over a hundred engineers in that division. That is not going to be cheap."

"I know Jared. But I want that whole division.", I told Jared shaking my head.

"Look Richie, I am your lawyer and friend, so if you want them, I will try and do my best to get them. But don't you already have surplus engineers. Not that I am doubting you my friend, but I have seen companies expand too quickly before. They usually run out of cash before they can make their mark.", Ron tried to caution me.

"You know what I think. I think we need to give Richard the benefit of doubt. He has taken risks before and all of them have paid off. I am willing to bet this one will as well. And even if it doesn't, we will have options later on.

Did you guys forget, that even if we run out of money, Pied Piper is the hottest thing in the valley right now? The moment we say yes, the VC's will be lining up to try and fund us.

So I say we go for it.", Monica said putting a hand on my shoulder and taking my side.

"What she said.", I said shrugging. "So guys get it done. Yes?", I inquired slash commanded my friends slash employees. To which all of them nodded.

Alright, it was time to get to work.

XxxxX

AN - So Thoughts? Reviews are my fuel. The more reviews I get the more I am motivated to right. Oh and I incorporated the suggestion about paying the medical bills of the Live Stream dude, like you guys suggested. Hoped you guys liked it.

~Till the Next Time


	17. Chapter 16

Disclaimer: I do not own Silicon Valley.

AN: Hey guys. New Chapter but a smaller one. Didn't have much to say here. We are not too far from the end now. Expect the story to end in 3 or 4 chapters max. Anyways, Enjoy!

_**Chapter 16 - Someone Important To Do!**_

**Richard**

It has been just over a month. For the whole month, I had been in India, trying to crack the deal with BigStar. And finally three days ago we closed the deal.

Like we had decided, we had to set up a demo live stream for them, for the Indian cricket series. The demo worked flawlessly. No interruptions, no data loss, no bugs and the best stream quality they had ever seen. And it wasn't even 4k. Their app and website wasn't wired for 4k, not until they gave that job to us as well.

Immediately after the demo match stream ended with two million viewers on the app and website enjoying the stream uninterrupted with amazing full HD picture, I was rushed into an impromptu meeting with the CEO of BigStar. The meeting went so well, that the CEO arranged for another meeting with their board the very next day.

The board unanimously agreed to upgrade their platform with our algorithm. They tried to put a non-compete clause in the agreement, but I and my legal team strongly refused. In the end they wanted their platform upgraded with our algorithm way more than other streaming business not having our algorithm. So they caved. After that, the lawyers and Jared took over, getting the best deal possible.

Though usually a deal of this scale would take month's to finalize, but they were working on a strict time table. They had only a few months before the biggest event of the year for them started. Namely the latest season of Indian Cricket League. They wanted to cash in on the event bigtime and also attract more subscribers before the completion from Netflix, Amazon and other local streaming services became even stronger.

So they fast-tracked the deal and just three days ago we signed the deal. Now Pied Piper walked away with 115 million dollar contract in terms of yearly fees for the privilege of using algorithm in their live streaming. The contract was for 5 years after which it would be renegotiated. They also agreed to play another 50 million to convert, compress and upgrade their current library of shows, movies and other content with our algorithm.

When I gave the news over video chat, to the people in the office, well let's just say, I had gone partially deaf for a few minutes because of their expressions of Joy. Monica had the biggest smile on her face but that was because she already knew beforehand, before I told everyone the news.

She was the one I had called first after all.

Ahh… Monica. I really did miss her for the whole month. I never thought I would pull a Dinesh and invent video chat just so that I can talk to a girl on a video call with better picture quality.

But I did, and it wasn't even that hard, as most of the work on the platform to make it possible had already been done. I had thrown together the video chat within a week. Though I had to work 20 hours days coding to make that happen.

The reason for that was quite simple, I had blue balls and I had the sudden urge to have FaceTime Sex but not on FaceTime, but rather on Piper Chat. At least, that was what I had planned to call it initially.

Anyways I succeeded, and the first-ever, non-testing, proper Vid-Call on my platform was having Vid-Sex with my girlfriend.

"Hey, Richard you look zoned out. Well…. I can understand. The new office looks amazing to me too.", Jared told me as both of us were standing outside of our new office. It was the same office that, Pied Piper had in the sixth season. Yes, everyone had moved into the new office, while me, Dinesh and Jared were in India. I had left Monica in charge and she had done a good job while I was gone.

We had moved into the new office, from what Monica had told me, we had hired a good lot more people when it looked like deal with BigStar was a Done-Deal. She had hired and filled a number of departments in my absence, which I neither had the foresight, inclination or interest in doing.

This included Media Management, HR, IT-Support, amongst others.

Monica….Over the month that we were away from each other…. Well, I had a little voice in my mind before I left for India saying that, long-distance might create problems between us. But over the month, I think our relationship had just strengthened.

"Richard?!", Jared asked shaking my shoulder.

"Yeah sorry, let go inside and see our offices.", I said and we both proceeded inside. After going through, vigorous security checks, we swiped our new key cards to enter the main office and were blasted in the face with blazing party music. They were playing 'We will rock you' as our entrance music. I kind of liked that.

The moment we entered a loud cheer went around the office, seeing us. Suddenly I was surrounded by dozens of employees shaking my hand, patting me on the back, some of them snuck pat's on the ass and some even hugged me. Same words were on everyone's lips – 'Congrat's man!' 'Good work boss' 'You did it'.

Throughout it all, I just smiled and shook hands and nodded my head. But the only thing I wanted to do was go find her. Look for her. Pull her to me and…. There she was.

Just standing a little ways away, arms folded and with a smile on her face and a body language that said that she wanted to jump me as well but was restraining herself as to not interrupt my moment of triumph. I didn't care a bloody hairy fuck about it, because as soon as I spotted her I was moving towards her with increasing speed and before I knew I was running. I reach her, swept her off her feet, and gave her a such a passionate searing kiss that communicated my elation, joy, need and desire at seeing her in person after a month.

Her reciprocating kiss and its ferocity, it seems, conveyed the same thing, and if we didn't have to breathe we wouldn't have stopped kissing.

And if our higher-order cognitive functioning hadn't kicked in we would have fallen to our baser instincts and had gone at it right on the floor in the middle of the office with everyone watching. By the hooting and catcalls of everyone in the office, they came to the same conclusion.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Two words were said. And it seemed to communicate it all. Fuck I have really fallen for this girl. When I came to this world,… Yes I wanted to have sex with her…. She was the hottest girl on the show… but I never thought I would fall for her so hard. There go all my dreams for being a billionaire playboy like Tony Stark.

But I don't think I regret it for a second when I am holding her in my arms.

Fuck me I have become really sappy going without sex for a month. This needs to be remedied quickly.

"Um, you want to get ou…." "Oh, god yes."

Before everyone's eyes, we turned around and left out of the same door I came in.

Oh well, I could start working from tomorrow and there will be other parties. Right now I have someone very important to do. ;-)

**XxxxX**

AN: So Thoughts? Reviews are my Fuel.

~Till The Next Time!


	18. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: I do not own Silicon Valley.

AN: Hey guys! Sorry for the delay. But here is the next chapter. Enjoy.

**_Chapter 17 - Products & Relationships_**

Alright. It had been a few days since the welcoming party. Most of my employees found my escape with Monica from the party after that searing kiss, quite amusing. Though because of that, during the orientation that followed, I had to announce a very liberal office dating policy. The reason being, I was in no position to dictate any moral high ground over it.

The orientation also included setting a tone for the working environment.

Right now I had, 200 plus employees after the poaching of the Nucleus division from Hooli. This included other departments that Monica had staffed in my absence. In the orientation, I gave them an idea of Pied Piper's overreaching goals, mission statement, vision, all that crap along with going over the task-based technical stuff.

Stuff that in the cannon, Richard had completely botched due to vomit-inducing crippling crippling anxiety, when he had gotten a large workforce working for him. Seeing it on the show was as cringy as it was hilarious. But this is no longer a TV show. It's my life. And like hell I am going to mess it up.

And since I didn't want any issues propping up this time around, I just did the three-day orientation. Even if it was a bit delayed due to my business trip in India.

Right now this was my fourth day back and this was the first meeting I was having for the day. This meeting was being held in the office common area with the giant screen and an area that was big enough for over 150 employees to stand or sit in attendance. Though the ones present were mostly engineers and people from marketing.

"Okay so guys, without any delay, let's start the general staff meeting. So since all of our engineers and salespeople are here, we are going to go over our current and future products, who is going to be assigned to which project, what is the market potential and the scalability of each product.", I said starting the PPT and walking around the pseudo stage looking at my troops.

"The first and original product we were working on initially was the Pied Piper Compression Platform. But because of some recent events, we as a company have started working on Streaming as a revenue-generating product, the Pied Piper platform took a back seat. But with the number of engineers we have now, we can start working on it again. Obviously since its February right now, we have sales people CES deadline. But that alright. Now that we have time, energy, money, motivation and a very capable workforce of engineers we can get back to it.

From what I understand after talking with Gilfoyle and Dinesh that we are a month at most away from a working beta. So we are going to assign a team to start working on that. It will be headed by Gilfoyle, Dinesh and me. For sales people, who have questions about the scalability and USP selling points, we will get to that in the next meeting. The people who will be assigned to the project will get a mail in your inbox.", I said to the note-taking and extremely interested employees.

"The Second and currently the most important product of this company right now is the streaming and data compression. I am naming it StreamTuning. The division handling it will be headed by Dinesh and Carla with me being in oversight. A third of the engineers we have will be assigned to the division.

The third product was the original product from which Pied Piper started.

The song recognition app. I have decided to call the app – "ORIGINAL". As it says on the slide, Original - The first app that was born out of Pied Piper propriety patented technology. You want to know, what song is that? (To be added later - You want to know what movie that dialogue is from?) Who is the singer, writer, lyrics or who holds the copyright, its just one click away! As an additional feature, you can also find out other songs with similar lyrics or tunes with match ranging for 0%-100%.

See I have been working on this app, on and off since the start. When we introduce Piper Suite of app's, I want this to be one of them. So I am going to take a small team and work on this personally.

The fourth product is something I threw together when I was in India.

See it's a Video Chat app that we have been using for the past month or so to stay in touch. This is one of the products that we can most quickly get off the ground. I think we would be ready for beta in 6 months. And I am saying 6 months because I do not want it to be JUST a video chat app.

See when I was in India, I saw a need that no one else saw. All of us in America and Western European countries have been using texting, since the advent of cell phones. We have been sending pictures on text chat, again since the advent of cell phones. But in Asian, Middle Eastern, South American & Eastern European countries cell phone companies and providers took quite a few years to get off the ground. And when they did they charged a lot for services like calls, texts and internet data. It is only in the last couple of years, in the Asian markets, the prices of cell phones, Call & internet service providers have gone down because of ridiculously rising competition.

I want to make an app geared towards those markets, especially Asian, which could not only be used for making video calls over the internet but also voice calls. Not only that, but it could also be used for sending pictures, videos, documents and a whole lot of other crap.

In another year or so, I want to introduce a business-facing version of this app. This would be the paid version with a monthly subscription fee. It would work as a virtual conference room, that can host anywhere from 3 to 300 participants in the video conference.

Look, I have big plans for this app, I think it could be our next big thing, that could push us to rival giants like Facebook and Google.", I said brimming with excitement. The excitement was mirrored by all the employees present. Be it old or new ones.

Then one of our newly hired techs raised his hand to asked a question.

"Umm, do you have a name for this app?", He asked nervously and equal part's intrigued.

"Yes. Yes, I do. I think we will call it 'What's App!' and for simplicity's sake 'What's App Business' for the paid version.", that got quite a few chuckles and the whole crowd murmuring in excitement.

"This is the project that will be headed by me personally along with Gilfoyle and Dinesh. This is going to be super big guys.

Now for the final new product, something our sales team can push along with StreamTuning is going to be the Pandora's box. The name is tentative. I also think Piper Box is a good option, but I am open to suggestions. Now, what is this box? Well to explain it, I have made a small video." I exclaimed. Then a video began playing on the big screen behind me. A video I had painstakingly copied from cannon when I made it.

_It's a big world, but thanks to modern technology, it's smaller than salespeople business moves at the speed of light._

_You can access your company's data anywhere, anytime._

_But if you can get your data, who else can get it? Spies, thieves, criminals, and foreigners._

I heard a big "Fuck you Richard!" from Dinesh, when his photo eating a bagel from the fridge was shown for the Foreigner.

"Then don't steal my bagel!", I said laughing uproariously.

Every single one of my employee's laughed at our byplay as the video continued.

_What if there was a way to take all of your company's data and back it up in a protected enclosure completely isolated from the world at large? Oh no._

_The ultimate enterprise data storage solution_

_The Pandora's Box!_

There was huge applause when the video ended. And Dinesh showed me the finger. But that was okay.

"Now, Gilfoyle is going to head this project and Dinesh and I will be helping him where he needs us. We will have the prototype ready in a month, max. Monica and Jared are going to be working on finding us production factories.

Then I want our sales people to go crazy." When I said that there was a loud cheer from the salespeople. I could understand them, they now hand another concrete product they could market to the businesses, get the revenue rolling and thus achieve bigger bonuses.

"Now we are going to have multiple meetings today and tomorrow, with the sales, business and engineering department regarding who is going to be assigned where and how to proceed. Those meetings will start within an hour. Till you get a mail to come to the conference room for meeting… back to work everyone.", I said finishing the presentation with excited murmuring breaking out amongst the crowd of employees.

**XxxxX**

"Richard, that was awesome!", Erlich said catching me on my way towards my new office.

"Thanks, man! And thanks for helping with the video at the end.", I told Erlich.

"Anytime boss man. Listen, Richard, I just heard something interesting from the Hooli employees. We might have an opportunity to piss off Gavin Belson, even more than he already is at your existence. More than that, I think we can win a lawsuit against Hooli and Belson, without settling and can actually push for more. Are you game?", he asked me grinning.

"Always. But first, tell me about it.", I replied grinning.

"Oh, get this, the fucker fired most of the Nucleus people before having them sign an NDA. And many that have joined us had refused to sign an NDA and simply walked out when they got our offers.

Since their employment contracts were null and void anyways, they have been singing all sorts of songs regarding the bullshit Gavin had them do though the years. Especially against us. And get this, they have confirmed, that Nucleus has been based on your stolen prototype.

Richard, we have Belson by the balls.", When Erlich finished, I stood stock-still. Pussy Fucking SHIT! I just wanted to hire the experienced group of engineers for all my new projects and at the same time give Gavin a finger, as an added bonus. I had no fucking clue, it would have such a ginormous unintended consequence.

"Richie?", Erlich inquired with a bit of worry and confusion at my stock still frame.

I didn't respond, I jumped in his arms and gave him kiss on the mouth and then started laughing like a mad man, "That! Deserved a kiss. That was glorious! And FYI you are a hairy mother fucker that smells of Cheetos and a dead rat. But I love you anyway man! Let's go meet Ron, right now!", I said, still megalomanically laughing to a now fake annoyed and disgusted Erlich.

Though I knew internally he was patting himself on the back and was beaming full of pride at my praise.

He was right about one thing though, We had Belson by the Balls Now.

"Oo, Yea sure… But that's not all man!", Erlich said grinning from ear to ear still.

**XxxxX**

"So you are telling me that Gavin Belson is censoring Hooli search to manipulate search results just so it doesn't show any links to websites that are censoring Hooli and Gavin Belson?", I asked Erlich grinning from ear to ear in my new office.

"Yes, that's what the new guys from Hooli told me. And I checked it myself by comparing search results from Hooli, Google, Bing and a few others. What do you want to do about it?", He asked almost giddy jumping on his toes.

"Leak it to the media discreetly and anonymously and watch the fireworks. And by anonymously I mean to make an untraceable dummy account and mail it to all major and minor publications. Let them investigate and reach their own conclusions. ", I replied.

By the end, both of us were laughing as evil cartoon villains.

**XxxxX**

As I was working, Tracy the Human Resource head and Jared came barging into my office.

"Richard" "Richard", they both greeted me. Though I could see Jared was quite anxious.

"Hey guys, can I help you with something?", I asked both of them.

Tracy elected to speak first. "Richard, as I emailed you, I think some offices need to be shuffled around to better optimize the productivity of the team. So I was thinking that we could move Jared's office from next to yours to closer to Biz Dev and marketing."

I could already see on Jared's face he was anxious about my reply. I had actually thought that spending so much time with him in India and working so closely with him would have helped with his abandonment issues. But looking at his face I could already see it was still a long road ahead.

"I don't think so. Jared is my right-hand man, I need him in shouting distance. Besides, I saw your email, I just ignored it as I was going to talk to you personally later. Jared stays where he is, closer to mine and Monica's office. Besides, it's a 90-second walk. I am sure Biz Dev and Marketing will manage without him sitting on their heads.", I said instantly bring a smile on his face, I could almost feel him being reassured as I spoke the words. "Unless Jared, you want to change office?", I asked this time looking at Jared.

"No No…. Richard, I want what you want. Being in your shouting distance. I would like to stay where I am.", He said smiling.

"Good. And Jared thanks for hiring Holden as my assistant. I am sure you will be training him straight.", I said hiding a smirk, thinking of the hell Jared is going to unleash on my poor assistant.

"You don't have to worry Richard, by the time I am done with him, you won't even realize the difference between me and him.", Jared said with a maniacal glint in his eyes.

Ohh, Suddenly I feel like I am a very very bad person. Poor Holden.

**XxxxX**

"….Then she did this thing where you roll your eyes but try not show it and she obviously failed at it because I spotted it in a second. Richard… Richard are you listening to me?", she said snapping her fingers in front of my face as I was looking at Monica transfixed tuning her out but thinking about her all the same.

I had been doing a lot of thinking about Monica lately. Before I went to India I knew I was in love with her. But while I was there, away from her, it was like every second of every minute I was missing her.

I woke up every day wanting to see her and went to sleep dreaming about her. I would not be an exaggerating to say that I was hopelessly, hilariously, head over heels in love with her.

And I knew I might have been inserted in a TV show, but it was my life now. A life I wanted to spend with her. I just needed to know she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me as well.

Some would say it was too soon. But it felt right to me, as evidenced by a small black box with a ring inside it in my sock drawer at home. But I need to make sure it felt right to her as well.

"Monica, where do you see us in 5 years?", I asked her bluntly.

She was startled when I said that. It took her brain a good few seconds to catch up with what I just said.

"Why are you asking me this?", she asked with a nervous expression.

"We both love each other. Overwhelmingly so, in my opinion. And I know I might sound like a girl when I say this, but do you want more? Do you want to get married and have kids someday?"

Monica didn't say anything for a few minutes after that, looking down as if recalling past memories and I could already see her eyes getting red and puffy and tears starting to build.

I didn't say anything, I would be here to comfort her but I thought she was building up the courage to say something that she had wanted to for a long time.

"Richard, I never had the best of luck when it came to men in my life. My dad left my mom, me and my sister when I was 7 years old and never came back. All the past relationships I have had have ended in one of two ways, either with them leaving me or cheating on me.

After my last relationship ended like that, I had sworn off men and stopped dating for 3 years. Then I met you. You came like a storm in my life and swept me off my feet.

Richard… Sometimes I feel I love you so much that it scares the shit out of me. I have never felt this… Like I feel with you, with anyone… ever.

You are right Richard, I am so in love with you that… there aren't words. But it also scares me… It scares me to think about what would happen when and not if…but when you inevitably leave me. I know it's screwed up… I am a bit screwed up. But that fear is always there, lurking behind the strong confident businesswoman I play in front of everyone.

Richard, I love you… But I am also afraid that you will eventually leave me. And sometimes I feel, that I should end it before it gets worse….Before I fall even more for you. Because the more time I spend with you, the more it will hurt when…. It happens.", she was bawling her eyes out.

I moved next to her and enveloped her in a hug.

"I know you might not believe me when I say this…. But the only way I will ever leave you is the day I die. I want to love you, Monica. I want to marry you someday. I want to have kids with you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.", I said kissing her on the forehead as she was hugging the life out of me.

"Promise?", She asked in a small voice.

"Pinky Promise.", I said earning a guaff on my chest from the still hugging love of my life.

"Are you proposing?", she asked looking up with both anxious and hopeful red puffy eyes.

"Ohh, no this is not proposing. You will know when I propose. And I promise you it is coming. Soon. So stay on your toes.", I said with a smile in my voice, ending it with a kiss to her lips.

She laughed and then finally got enough control of herself to start fixing herself up again. "I am a mess.", she said looking at her ruined makeup in her compact.

"You are my mess. And a hot one at that.", I said bringing her close and kissing her.

As we both came up for air, I asked her the question I had planning to ask for a long long time, "But for now…. Will, you move in with me?", I asked and in return, I got the biggest smiles I had ever seen on her face.

"Took you long enough."

**XxxxX**

**AN: So Thoughts? Reviews are my fuel! Sorry for the late chapter but work has been busy. But as a treat, I am going to upload this chapter as well as Rise of JST's next chapter back to back. Go check it out if you haven't. **

**Also please do let me know what did you think on the new products? And the progress of Monicas and Richards relationship.**

**~Till The Next Time**


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